I'll suggest one, then pose it to the group.

Would anybody be willing to share their Standard Operating Procedures' template with me?

I teach a class (Medical Laboratory Instrumentation) and for the last two years we've used the template from RPI, that I believe I originally got from a discussion on this list.  I do a "simple" example of making up  and using a acid wash then ask them to use it to develop SOP's for lab centrifuges, blood cell counters, urinalysis instrumentation, etc.

As I was reviewing it this morning (of course, the lab I'm doing acid bath example in is today) I realized it would be nice to have a version that is more reflective of the updated GHS standards - using pictograms in place of older symbols for corrosive, poison, oxidizer, etc.; section headers that better align with the 16 titled section on an SDS; and, while not so much GHS but a headache we've been facing in some research labs, more details in the "waste management" section that indicates using the correct container, labeling, and generally thinking about waste production BEFORE starting the experiment.

Jeff

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 8:17 AM, Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org> wrote:

I'm working with some chemical librarians and chemical information professionals to develop strategies for searching electronic information resources (i.e. the web) for chemical safety information. To help with these discussions, we'd like to come up with ten or so fairly specific questions that EHS people might be called upon to research to support lab workers in their safety efforts. Examples of such questions appear on this list relatively frequently, can include inquiries such as

- "I am looking for a safer alternative to Piranha etch that would work but wouldn't have the hazards associated with Piranha"

- "Are any of you running building traps on your house vacuum systems?"

- "I've had a request for an ammonia detector for the animal room in Biology. Does anyone have any recommendations?"

- "Someone asked me how large of a spill they could clean up themselves without calling our internal emergency spill team.  Let's assume it is something nasty like methylene chloride or benzene.  Is there a good rule of thumb for how large of a spill (outside a hood) can be cleaned up safely?"

If you assume that you're on a campus that doesn't have an EHS staff, or just decide as a lab person to google your way to answer, what web resources would you as an EHS person consider reliable in providing information to these kinds of questions and what keywords would you use to find answers?

One resource we've already looked at is the MSDS glossary at
http://www.ilpi.com/msds/ref/
which has a lot of useful keywords, as well as what they call "Useless MSDS Abbreviations". We're interesting in keywords that might not be on that list.

Or if you've had an interesting question like this come up recently, just the question itself would be an interesting addition to our discussions.

Thanks for any help with this.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart
secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Secretary
Division of Chemical Health and Safety
American Chemical Society