Hazardous Material Information System - A Review
Ms. Angaluri Arun Shourie1
and Mr. Abhishek Nandan2
1Post Graduate Student in M. Tech Health Safety and Environment, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun India
2Department of Health Safety and Environment, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun
India
*Corresponding Author Email: arunshourieangaluri55@gmail.com
ABSTRACT:
Hazardous Material Information System
(HMIS) is one of the simplest inclusive hazard communication systems by which
worker gets informed about the workplace hazards proactively, thereby receives
appropriate training to work safely. The system therefore creates a safer
workplace by making workers aware of hazards as a means of quick and emergency
access relatively. The system is to reduce the likelihood of exposure of
workers from workplace injuries, illness and accidents by proactive information
through cautionary labels and symbols (with the perspective of layman) of
hazards, adequate (PPE) personnel protective equipment, appropriate fire
extinguishing media. This can be achieved by management commitment via
communicating and displaying HMIS at the notice boards and giving training to
the workers for ensuring better and safer workplace. This system is one of the
attempts for the safe management of hazardous chemicals in the workplace by
providing a user-friendly interface to vendors, clients and employees.
KEYWORDS: Hazard Communication, Training, Workplace
Hazards, Cautionary labels and Symbols, Quick and Emergency Access, etc.
1. INTRODUCTION:
HMIS is to clearly inform about the hazards in the
workplace by means of rating and receives appropriate training to enable
workers to work safely. The objective of HMIS is to determine and classify the
hazards of chemicals used in the workplace by means of rating scale; to
transmit and provide information to vendors, manufacturers, workers throughout
the whole nation with key vital information about hazardous materials used or
present at the workplace which may be hazardous to the safety and health of
workers. HMIS is meant to reduce the likelihood of disease or injury in the
workplace due to exposure to hazardous materials by considering adequate and
appropriate protective and preventive measures.
2. BACKGROUND:
Exposure
to hazardous materials can cause various health effects such as skin
irritation, burns, sensitization and organ damage. Feware responsible for fire and
explosion and other hazardous scenarios if stored and moved improperly.
Tobacco, wood and other dangerous materials in transit, hazardous wastes are
exempted from HMIS. This system classifies the hazardous material based on the
type of the hazard that they present. (J. Takala et al
1991), to reduce the number of unlikely incidents such as
accidental/emergency releases there are usually a number of methods. The key
elements in safe usage of chemicals are appropriate and adequate information on
the inherent hazards and their usage; effective means of communicating the
information to the workers who are responsible for safety and health. The
information can be obtained from many sources such as MSDS but problem with
descriptive language which poses a great sort of inconvenience to the semi -
skilled workers and layman. Addressing this problem, a system has to be
developed with minimum basic hazardous information in semi- descriptive
language with cautionary labels and symbols (e.g. irritant, carcinogenic,
flammable symbols) thereby provides an easy understanding of physical and
health hazards, first-aid treatment, PPE, extinguishing media (with tick and
wrong marks), HMIS rating to the workers.
3 REVIEW OF LITERATURE:
Rosanne Coˆte´ et al 1998 worked on WHMIS (Workplace
Hazardous Material Information System) which is responsible to reduce the
incidence of illness and injuries those results from the usage of hazardous
materials in the workplace. Preliminary factors such as applicable routes of
exposure, hazard its risk level, studies on tested and untested mixtures are
responsible for analysis of toxicological hazards for WHMIS classification and
MSDS disclosure. The finding from this paper is mainly associated with problems
and inadequate information associated with MSDS, accordingly with the base of
studies, this paper suggested that sources of exposure, air-borne concentrations,
degree and extent of toxicity and lethal information of the particular
substance (applicable to the mixtures even) must be disclosed in MSDS for the
flexible development of advanced WHMIS.
Jefferey
L Burgess et al 1996worked on the
provision of (HMEIS) Hazardous Material Exposure Information Service as a quick
information access to the medical professionals who treat victims exposed to
hazardous materials. The development and descriptive analysis of this system is
done with the support of Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
(ATSDR) added with the collection of on-sight information. Effective monitoring
by dedicated phone line to receive on-sight calls, proper instructions while victim’s
treatment and follow-up is crystal clear from this paper. Also, a study on
victim’s condition before and after transport which shown the former mode as
more desirable. The outcome of HMEIS shows that drop in transport rate values
of victims of course represent a significant savings in medical cost. The
system was considered to be best in collecting the data very effectively and
provides useful treatment controls to the victims.
Bruce E. Herring et al 1985 worked on the provision of
the knowledge to the firefighter proactively about what is present at the fire
site before arrival through an appropriate data retrieval system which possess
the information on hazardous materials and their potential hazards at a given
location, extinguishing media and PPE to be used etc. for the firefighting
effectiveness and safety. The method started with figuring out some
constraints, so that they can be overcome during the development of data base
structure with supporting programs. Certain requisites such as initialization,
updating (add, delete, change) of file and information retrieval are considered
while designing the system. Even though the system presents an easy, quick,
simple information access on hazardous materials in a user - friendly way, it
got inconvenient with language and disk spinning problem.
Salvatore Belardo et al 1985 worked on the development of
Prototype Hazardous Material Movement Information system which started with the
gathering of information of material that is to be moved such as identification
number, product and its quantity, origin and destination to and from which
product is carried and ended up with Hazardous Material Movement Information
Survey. The result of this system is flexible enough and summarized saying
about three reports in which the first report is on type of hazardous materials
observed, second report is on sources of hazardous materials, third about the
breach of hazardous material regulations that found during survey; thereby if
hazardous materials are transported through bridges, population centers,
highways, tunnels and other facilities, wherever the quantity and nature of
material pose an unacceptable risk, regulations are in place to mitigate the
damage caused by accidents.
J. Takala et al 1991
worked on development of machine aided human translation system of all the hazardous
material data, also to convert this material for further translation into local
languages. The system initiates with
searching and finding out the difficulties to overcome, development of system
by a) Morphological analysis b) Checking the general dictionary c) Phase
translation d) General grammatical rule base translation e) Working environment
and tasks of the translator f) Creating the final English chemical data sheet.
Although system owns all the necessary hazardous material information with cautionary
labels and symbols, sometimes the number of synonyms of chemical names would be
serious issue although CAS numbering system (which is the only system currently
available to identify chemicals and products without any ambiguity) doesn’t
have any logical backdrop; transformation of sheets in bulk mode was not up to
the mark with some quality and grammatical problems.
4. MATERIALS AND METHODS:
1. Collection of all
the chemicals using and present at the workplace.
2. Gathering all the (MSDS) Material Safety Data Sheets
of chemicals.
3. Development of HMIS for the given chemicals.
Information in HMIS is briefed below.
3.1. Product Code
3.2. Product Name
3.3. HMIS Index (rating) of a chemical
|
General Rating
Summary |
||
|
Health |
Flammability |
Reactivity |
|
4. May be fatal on short exposure.
Specialized protective equipment is required |
4. Flammable gas or extremely flammable
liquid |
4. Explosive material at room temperature |
|
3. Corressive or
toxic. Avoid skin contact or irritiation |
3. Flammable liquiod
flash point below 100 grees F |
3. May be explosive if shocked, heated
under confinement or mixed with water |
|
2. May be harmful if inhaled or absorbed |
2. Combustible liqujid
has point of 100 to 200 degrees F |
2. Unstable or may react violently if mixed
with water |
|
1. May be irritating |
1. Combustible if heated |
1. May react if heated or mixed with water
but not violently |
|
0. No unusual hazard |
0. Not combustible |
0. Not reactive when mixed with water |
3.4. First Aid Treatment (for skin, eyes, inhalation,
ingestion)
3.5. Main Health Hazards e.g. carcinogenic
3.6. Main Physical Hazards e.g. flammability, oxidizer
3.7. Fire extinguishing media e.g. CO2, water, alcohol
foam
3.8. Personnel Protective Equipment e.g. goggles, gloves,
respirator, footwear, clothing
5.
SUMMARY:
HMIS is an effective hazard communication tool to
manufacturers, employees, clients, medical professionals, employers and vendors
as a means of quick and emergency access. This system is accountable for generating
a healthy and safer workplace by making workers aware of hazards and
accordingly safeguards to be taken. A worker distinctly gets intimated about
the workplace hazards proactively by means of HMIS rating and its severity
thereby undergo proper training before any work start. HMIS assists in the
preparation of Personnel Protective Equipment plan directly without going
through entire MSDS which ultimately saves time.
6.
CONCLUSION:
HMIS was able to effectively collect the hazardous data,
suitable preventive and protective measures as well without any ambivalence.
Accomplishment of HMIS to workers is attained when it gets communicated in a
healthy way by displaying at notice boards. Majority of MSDS is in illustrative
format which creates a sort of discomfort to the semi - skilled and layman.
Considering this as a key prospect, a system with caution signs and labels
usage has to be developed which provides a comfortable platform for vigilance
in the individuals by noticing the warning sign. For basic information,
choosing MSDSpose a difficulty to medical
professionals, firefighters, workers and if it is emergency, leads to direct
and indirect losses. It’s not the end if individual gets communicated with
HMIS, a gap between worker and HMIS still exists which needs to be and can be
bridged by giving adequate training. However most of the data is from MSDS,
which doesn’t mean that it is a way of ignoring it; for complete information
and for better health and safety, MSDS is a best way.
7.
REFERENCES:
Received on 11.04.2015 Accepted
on 02.07.2015
©A&V
Publications all right reserved
Research J. Engineering and Tech. 6(4): Oct. -
Dec., 2015 page 477-479
DOI: 10.5958/2321-581X.2015.00073.2