Laboratory Safety: Hazards And Precautions

Personal Protective Equipment

The ambience of the laboratory can be a hazardous place to work with. The laboratory workers are often exposed to numerous hazardous substances including physical, chemical, biological and radioactive wastes as well as musculoskeletal stresses. The laboratory safety is governed by federal laws and regulations.

Handling of poisonous, radioactive substances

Personal protective equipment like globes, masks and lab coats should be worn while handling with radioactive substances. Safe handling of highly toxic laboratory chemicals involves restricting access to the laboratory for a normal person when work is in progress. Personal practices like hand washing, using liquid soaps, decontamination of the work stations are some of the basic rules of handling laboratory chemicals (Wedlich et al. 2012).

Storage

Handling and the storage of laboratory chemicals such as poisons, solvents and the other reactive chemicals are the most important part of the laboratory safety. Incompatible chemicals should be segregated properly as per the chemical hazard class ensuring that like chemicals are stored together and are kept away from the hazardous chemical groups (Wedlich et al. 2012). Quantity of the chemicals should be kept to minimum and any bulk quantities of chemicals has to be stored in any external storage. Chemicals should not be stored in worktop benches, floors or the fume hoods to minimize the risk of being knocked over. Gas cylinders should be located in the well ventilated areas.

The flammable chemicals has to be stored in the fire safety storage cabinets and should never be stored in the domestic type refrigerators (Fuscaldo 2012). Poisonous substances should be kept in locked storage and should be kept distinctive from the other reagents by labelling them properly. All the storage locations of the radioactive wastes should be checked with the gamma survey meter. Vials containing radioactive substances after opening should not be stored in the refrigerators but in the fume hoods. Storage locations of the radioactive substances should be labelled with “Caution radioactive Material sign”.

Functions

High vacuum storage containers are used to store the laboratory chemicals that are sensitive to moisture, oxygen and other gases.

A fume cupboard is a local ventilation device designed for limiting the exposure to toxic fumes.

A laboratory centrifuge is a motor driven device that is used to separate the components of a liquid.

Desiccators are used in the laboratory for drying the reactants before they can be used for the chemical reaction. The chemicals are normally sealed in the air tight containers containing a desiccant for absorbing any water vapor present in the chamber (Hill and Finster 2016).

Laboratory ovens function on high forced volume thermal convection applications and are useful in providing a uniform temperature throughout. It is used for sterilizing, curing, annealing, conditioning.

Transportation

Transportation of the laboratory chemicals via glassware requires safe handling to avoid injury. All the glassware should be checked for cracks before the transfer. Chemical compatibility with the glassware should be kept in mind. Appropriate PPE should be worn while vacuum and pressure operations (Wedlich et al. 2012).  

Disposal

The radioactive substances should be disposed of in labelled bags. Needles, pipettes and the other sharp objects has to be placed in puncture proof containers. Some of the liquid radioactive wastes are diluted to drop their activity levels and then disposed off as normal wastes (Fuscaldo 2012). Bio-hazardous wastes should be disposed off in sealed, labelled containers, the liquid biohazard should be treated with bleach before disposing off.

Handling and Storage of Chemicals

Ordering of the chemicals

Chemicals should be ordered as per the amount needed for the current work. It is required to review the manufacturer’s data sheet for the chemical of interest and identify the necessary hazards of each of the chemicals and how to handle them safely. It is necessary to determine the correct hazard level for ordering the chemicals.

Calibration of the equipments

Calibration of the laboratory equipments is necessary for increasing the accuracy of the instrument and to prevent the data corruption (Hill and Finster 2016).

Maintenance of the laboratory equipment

Laboratory equipment should be maintained to prevent potential hazards due to functional failure. This involves repairing for elongating the functional life of the equipment, refurbishing for cleaning the laboratory equipment. Maintenance of the laboratory equipment should be done by the qualified professionals.

Improper handling of the laboratory equipment might cause injuries due to heat, spills, splashing and the direct transmission in the body and might also cause wastage of chemicals due to spills and fall (Hill and Finster  2016). Proper storage of the laboratory chemicals prevents wastage of the chemicals and avoid accidents while storing incompatible chemicals. Improper disposal of the laboratory wastes can contaminate the environment and can cause diseases. Proper transportation is necessary to prevent unnecessary hazards or wastage of the chemicals during the transportation process (Minqin, Yuan and Suangcai 2012).

Importance of documentation

PPE diagram for handling pathogens- to provide education to workers in the laboratory about the type of PPE for each type of work.

Incident report-It is a form that is filled to record the details of accidents or unusual events in a health care facility.

Material safety data/ Manufacturer’s data sheet- It contains detailed documentation of a hazardous chemicals, such as the physical and the chemical properties, the potential hazards and the precautions for handling (Hill and Finster  2016).  

COSHH and risk assessment-this is the assessment of the hazards and the risks present in the workplace- identification of the potential hazards, how the substances are harmful for the health, what are the tasks that leads to exposure to such hazards, the areas of concern (HSE. 2017).

Figure- COSHH symbols

(Source- HSE 2017)

CLEAPSS hazards- It is an advisory service providing support in the science for the consortium of the local authorities (Health and Safety executive. 2014).

Figure 2- CLEAPSS hazards

(Source- Health and Safety executive 2014)

Waste disposal forms- They contained detailed information about a particular type of waste, the origin, chemical composition and the potential hazards that can be caused to the environment (Fuscaldo 2012).

Figure 3- Waste disposal form

(Source- Fuscaldo 2012)

Fire extinguishers- They are used for extinguishing or control small fires and is an important device for any workplace and laboratories

Figure 4- Fire extinguishers

Starting from the chemicals to the electrical equipment, the laboratories reap a wide variety of the safety hazards that is why safety regulations is mandatory in laboratory (Fischer, Hynes and Perl 2014).

A real life experience can be shared to support this fact. While I was working in a laboratory (LPD lab services) with concentrated hydrochloric acid, a drop of concentrated acid fell on my lab coat which instantly corroded the fabric by making a hole. I was lucky enough and was wearing my PPE – glove and the lab coat, otherwise the corrosive action of the acid could have damaged by clothes and skin.  

Transportation of Chemicals

10 safety regulations that should be followed are:-

• Noise at work regulation is necessary to maintain the noise level within the audible range to avoid hearing impairment.
• Personal protective equipment at work regulation instructs to wear the personal protective equipment while working in the laboratory to prevent transmission of infectious agents or radioactive substances than can diffuse inside the bodies.
• Health and safety at work regulation ensures that the workplace is safe and sustainable by assessing the risks and the hazards and taking of appropriate results.
• Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988(COSHH) places responsibility on the scientists working in the laboratory to improve health and safety at the workplace. It provides a framework to protect the employees from workplace employees.
• Consultation with the employees regulation- This is a statutory instrument that provides the general framework for consulting and informing the employees within the workplace.
• The First Aid regulation involves the provision of adequate and appropriate equipments, personnel and the facilities for ensuring that workers get immediate attention if they are ill at work.
• Fire precautions act-To ensure that the scientist is aware of the location of the safety alarms and the evacuation procedure such that they can be used during emergency conditions such as a fire due to explosion(Wedlich et al. 2012).
• Manual handling operations regulation to assess any hazardous manual handling operations and set the standards of weight for manual handling (gov.uk 2011).
• The waste management and the environmental protection act deals with issues related to waste disposal, its harmful effects and the potential neutralizing way of managing wastes.
• Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations1998, deals with the work equipments used regularly in workplace for keeping people safe from machinery related injuries (Hill and Finster 2016).

Statistics

• Statistics shows that in 2014, there were about 1.21 accidents reported per every 200,000 work hours in the Berkeley lab (Summary statistics for Great Britain. 2016).
• 5% of the laboratory workers have been found to have failed to wear eye protection.
• 190 Australian workers have died at workplace in the year 2017 due to workplace related injuries including fire breakout, bystander fatalities, falls, and contact with the electricity and several more (Safe Work Australia. 2017).
• In the year 2017, 11 fatal incidents have been coded to inadequate guarding involving the conveyers and lifting plants, 10 involved vehicular accidents, 6 involved crushing and pressing.
• In 2012, a total of 183 workers have been found to have died in the design related fatal incident (Safe Work Australia. 2017).

These statistics show that failing to abide by the above mentioned 10 regulations might lead to hazards in laboratory/factories.  

HSE and their roles

HSE is a non-departmental public body in United Kingdom that is responsible for the regulation, encouragement and the enforcement of the workplace health, safety and the welfare and search for the occupational hazards in Britain (HSE. 2017).

Importance of regulation of safe work practices

Regulations of work practices in a laboratory facilitate prevention of danger related to health and safety and also help to increase the reliability of the experiments and the outcomes. Safe work practices will not only reduce the occurrence of the accidents but will also encourage the workers to work for the laboratory or the factory with relief. This would decrease the employee turnover, the cost of training new employees and the rate of compensation, which would further increase the productivity.

Yes the information supplied  by the HSE are relevant , up to date and credible, because HSE is governed by a board and the management board and advisory committeesconcerned with the health and the safety in a particular industrial sector. HSE also abides by the legislation relevant to the industry and are capable of taking legal actions. The approved codes of practice (ACOPs) are approved by the Health and the safety executive with the consent of the secretary of the State. Furthermore the website also contains information about the recent press releases which indicates that the website is updated with the current news and the guidelines (HSE. 2017).

All the information are relevant for the laboratory safety as all the guidelines published in their websites provide credible guidelines for health and safety in a laboratory. Laboratory explosions and injuries might involve malpractices and breaching of the regulations. Hence it is important to have a prior knowledge of the various codes and the practices.

References

Fischer, W.A., Hynes, N.A. and Perl, T.M., 2014. Protecting health care workers from Ebola: personal protective equipment is critical but is not enough. Annals of internal medicine, 161(10), pp.753-754.

Fuscaldo, A. ed., 2012. Laboratory safety theory and practice. Elsevier.

Health and Safety executive. 2014. Health and safety executive homepage Access date: 4.10.2018. Retrieved from: https://www.hse.gov.uk/index.html

Hill, R.H. and Finster, D.C., 2016. Laboratory safety for chemistry students. John Wiley & Sons.

HSE. 2017.COSHH assessment: Identifying hazard and assessing risk. Access date: 4.10.2018.

Hse.gov.uk., 2011. Laboratory practice. Available from https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/oce17.pdf Accessed on 06 October 2018.

Minqin, B., Yuan, Z. and Suangcai, Z., 2012. Analysis of college chemistry laboratory safety problems and exploration of safety management measures [J]. Experimental Technology and Management, 1, p.060.Retrieved from :https://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/basics/assessment.html

Summary statistics for Great Britain. 2016.Health and safety at work. Access date: 4.10.2018. Retrieved from: https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overall/hssh1516.pdf?pdf=hssh1516

Wedlich, R.C., Libera, A.E., Pires, A. and Tellarini, C., 2013. Good Laboratory Practice. Part 2. Recording and Retaining Raw Data. Journal of Chemical Education, 90(7), pp.858-861.

WU, X.F. and WEN, X.H., 2012. Analysis of and Reflections on Laboratory Safety in Universities [J]. Research and Exploration in Laboratory, 8, p.025.

Safe Work Australia., 2017.Work-related fatalities associated with unsafe design of machinery, plant and powered tools, 2012 – 2016.Access date: 12.10.2018. Retrieved from :https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/documents/1702/work-related-fatalities-unsafe-design.pd