So now you have located an MSDS for a chemical that you want safety information about.
How do we interpret it?
Well, firstly, try to get an Australian MSDS format if you can (just check if there is a “.au” in the web address). European ones are also good, as they use the same format as Australian MSDS, but American MSDS are not as good, as they are lacking one essential part (which I’ll mention later).
We want the MSDS to answer 4 questions for us:
1. Is it Dangerous?
2. Is it Hazardous?
3. Is it a Poison?
4. Is it carcinogenic/reprotoxic/mutagenic/teratogenic?
These might all sound the same, or at least similar, but they call have specific meanings which we’ll look at one by one.
1. Is it Dangerous?
This refers to whether or not the chemical poses and acute danger either in transport or storage. It is not concerned with the regular usage of the chemical. Obviously a chemical that is dangerous is also likely to fall into one of the other categories mentioned above, but that is not the primary concern of the “dangerous” label.
Dangerous chemicals are referred to industrially as “dangerous goods” and there are very strict laws about their transport and usage. These are chemicals that have little diamonds on them, or big diamonds if being transported in bulk on a truck.
There are nine classes of DGs: explosives, compressed gases, flammable liquids, flammable solids, oxidisers, toxins, radioactive, corrosives, and miscellaneous (usually an environmental hazard).
By far the most common ones that you will will encounter are
and
The flammables that you will encounter are solvents like metho, turps, thinners and of course the petrol that you put in your car.
Interestingly, diesel is not classed as a flammable. The reason is that its flashpoint is above the cutoff of 61° – anything below this is flammable, and anything above this is not. And this makes perfect sense – if you tossed a burning match into a bucket of diesel, nothing would happen, but of course if you did it to petrol, it would be a different story.
Corrosives in common usage are essentially acids and alkalis. Perhaps the most common corrosive you would encounter in your day to day living is caustic soda, although many bathroom and kitchen cleaners contain caustic chemicals along with the little diamond.
An example is Easy-Off BAM, one of my favourite cleaners, which qualifies as a caustic chemical because of the sulphamic acid in it (but you have to turn it over to see the diamond on the back).
So the obvious lesson is, don’t light matches if you are around a flammable, and if you are using a corrosive, it’s always a good idea to wear something on your eyes.
So any effect of dangerous goods is going to be obvious and immediate – whether it’s starting a fire, or getting something in your eye is that will sting.
But not all things that will do you harm have an obvious poor and immediate effect, and these are the chemicals that people are mostly concerned about.
Tomorrow we’ll look further into it.