When carrying out a risk assessment on your hazardous chemical stores, you need to consider off-site risks that aren’t part of your own operations. Off-site risks can contribute to the physical safety of your workplace by triggering fires, explosions and chemical reactions. This post will be looking at a range of potential off-site risks that could impact the hazardous chemicals stored at your workplace. We’ll also be detailing key things to consider when you’re conducting your next chemical risk assessment, so you can identify and control these off-site risks.
NOTE: We’ve included some extreme examples in the article — actual events triggered by off-site activities or the weather — to help you understand the potential for danger. In many instances, control measures will include liaising with the relevant community groups and local business, while factoring the risks into a Chemical Emergency Plan.
Nearby workplaces and neighbouring properties can increase the level of risk to your own workplace. Activities and installations on adjacent properties can also introduce new hazards to your site.
The work conducted on neighbouring properties can contribute to the chemical risks on your site.
We suggest considering the following points in your chemical risk assessment:
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IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to consider how a chemical emergency could impact neighbouring schools, hospitals, aged care facilities, residential zones, offices, shopping centres and other businesses. Ensure any outside chemical stores are separated from public and protected places, to minimise the impact of a potential chemical hazard.
Off Site workers, contractors and delivery drivers can introduce new hazards to your site if protocols aren’t followed or activities aren’t properly supervised.
Contractors, suppliers and delivery staff must be educated so they don't introduce new chemical hazards to your workplace.
Considering the following activities that may impact the safety of your hazardous chemical stores:
REMEMBER: If you’re carrying hazardous chemicals at your site, you must ensure that only authorised personnel, who are properly trained in chemical safety, have access to the stores. This includes access to the areas surrounding the stores. Incidents such as fire, flashback and explosion can occur if people bring ignition sources or incompatible substances into chemical storage and handling areas.
How could extreme weather, such as floods, cyclones, heatwaves or wild storms, impact the safety of your hazardous chemical stores?
Extreme weather, changes in temperature and natural disasters can greatly impact the safety of your outdoor chemical stores.
If you have outdoor chemical stores, you should consider if they could be damaged by wind, hail, lightning or heavy rain. Outdoor stores, bulk package stores and high-volume chemical storage tanks have the potential to cause catastrophic environmental and property damage – if they are adversely affected by extreme weather conditions.
Changes in temperature can also affect the chemical and physical properties of most hazardous substances — including their explosive range.
Potential hazards include:
EXTREME EXAMPLE: During a flood in Egypt, flammable liquids were released from a damaged aviation fuel depot and were ignited by a lightning strike. The burning fuel was then dispersed through villages and towns by floodwaters — many people were killed, and the economic damage was enormous.
Natural disasters, floods and storms can also cause lengthy power-cuts and water shortages, but this can also happen due to scheduled maintenance.
Consider how a cut to your water supply or a change in water pressure may affect your operations.
Your risk management plan should also factor unplanned machinery breakdowns and power failures.
More specifically:
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE: A power outage at an aluminium processing plant stopped all the pumps — including the pumps controlling heat exchange and cooling. Temperatures and pressure increased until the pressure relief valves overloaded. A number of vessels containing corrosive chemicals exploded, injuring 29 employees and causing extensive property damage.
We hope you now have a deeper understanding of how events, activities and people outside of your business can impact the chemical safety of your site. To learn more about this topic, we encourage you to access our free eBook.
How To Manage The Risk Of Hazardous Chemicals In The Workplace explains how to incorporate these external risks and hazards into your risk management plan. It also gives you a step-by-step guide to improving chemical compliance in your own business. Grab your copy of our eBook today by simply clicking on the image below.