Hazardous Material Management and Hazard Communication

Hazardous Material Management and Hazard Communication prepares students and safety, health and environmental professionals with the regulatory information and best practices to manage hazardous materials and communicate hazards to their employees and first responders. Management of hazardous waste is a broad and complex subject. Under federal law, each state is allowed to sets its own standards for dealing with hazardous waste as long as they are at least as strict as the federal statutes. Thus, safety professionals working for national companies frequently must know both the federal and state laws and regulation to make sure their organizations comply with hazardous waste management, transportation, and disposal rules and regulations. In addition OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) imposes a separate set of requirements. Benchmarking, performance criteria and best practices are examined in detail, since the HCS is a performance-based standard, which makes it at the same time flexible in meeting requirements but hard to know how to comply or just follow the overall intent of the standard. However, as the authors make clear, it is not a one-size-fits-all Standard, meaning you cannot just adopt another company’s compliance solution and apply it without change. The text provides great detail on the standard’s provisions and application, including the use of Safety Data Sheets (SDSs). The text also examines the EPA and DOT also regulations regarding hazardous spills and releases. Other topics include: Labeling of hazardous materials, including language and symbols Transportation and handling of hazardous materials Training issues, including written plans, and cultural and literacy issues Department of Transportation (DOT), EPA, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and ANSI Z192 regulations and standards are also discussed. Written by SH&E experts, this text includes chapters from The Safety Professionals Handbook, 2nd edition, selected based on a survey of Handbook authors who are university faculty members.