Using a Risk Management Methodology to Manage Risks Associated with Hazardous Chemicals

A chemical risk management methodology is a systemised approach to controlling the harm caused by hazardous chemicals at your workplace. In this post, we’ll walk you through the Steps of an effective methodology and help you understand how you can accurately identify and control the hazards in your workplace.

What is a Risk Management Methodology?

Under WHS laws, there is a responsibility to workers and the community safe from potential hazards. A risk management methodology offers a systematic approach to identifying risks, assessing their capacity for harm, controlling the risk and sustaining compliance.

Benefits of Using Risk Management Methodology

Introducing the Storemasta risk management methodology into your workplace can help you control the hazards that are present. These hazards can be identified and controlled so that people, property and the environment are protected.

In workplaces that carry dangerous goods and hazardous chemicals, implementing a risk management methodology can:

• Ensure your staff are working within safe chemical exposure limits
• Prevent flammable liquids causing or contributing to a fire
• Get your gas cylinder storage areas 100% compliant with WHS Regulations
• Decide on the most suitable PPE to use when handling a toxic substance
• Completely eliminate a hazardous chemical from the job site

How Many Steps to a Hazardous Substance Risk Assessment

There are 4 essential Steps in a hazardous substance risk management methodology.

These are:

• Step 1: Identifying chemical hazards
• Step 2: Assessing the risks of using hazardous chemicals
• Step 3: Eliminating and controlling chemical hazards
• Step 4: Sustaining chemical compliance with regular reviews

To assist with your hazardous chemical assessment and management, we’re going to walk you through these steps so you can better understand how to implement this system in your own operations.

Step 1: Identifying Chemical Hazards

Risk management begins by identifying the hazardous substances you have on your premises. You’ll probably need to walk around the workplace and physically identify everywhere hazardous chemicals are stored or used. At the same time, you’ll need to list the chemical hazards present in that work area.

Use the safety data sheets (SDSs) to determine both the physical and health hazards of the chemicals as follows:

• Physical Hazards - are the physical properties of the chemical that can immediately cause the death or injury to your workers, damage property; or harm the environment (ie, they are flammable, explosive, self-reactive).
• Health Hazards - are the chemical properties of the substance that are dangerous to humans, other organisms, and the environment (ie, they are toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic).

Step 2: Assessing the Risks of Using Hazardous Chemicals

Once you have a full list of all the hazardous chemicals onsite, where they are located, and their physical + health hazards you can begin to assess just how much harm they could cause.

What Dangerous Events or Workplace Accidents Could Occur?

This hazardous chemical risk assessment phase will have you considering what types of incidents could occur due to chemical hazards.

Some examples of incidents caused by chemical hazards may be:

• A gas bottle falls over, causing the valve to break.
• Staff drop a drum of lubricant which spills onto the floor of the workshop near the MIG welder.
• A delivery truck accidentally hits and penetrates a flammable liquids store located near the entrance to the warehouse.

Hazards can occur in any area of your business, particularly where hazardous chemicals are present.

How Frequently Could Each of These Dangerous Events Occur?

The next step is to determine how frequently a chemical incident could occur.

For example, would it be likely that a drum of lubricant could spill every shift, multiple times a month, during wild weather, upon delivery to the site or other circumstances?

When listing potentially dangerous events, you need to consider how seemingly unrelated events/issues/conditions could affect your hazardous chemicals.

In workplaces with dangerous goods and Hazchem, you should also consider:

• Adverse weather situations (floods, cyclones, heatwaves, bushfires) may compromise hazardous chemical storage or handling areas.
• Unplanned equipment failure (breakdowns, blackouts, mobile signal outages) could affect safety and visibility at the site.
• Other threats (potential bomb scares, hold ups, vandalization etc).

What are Consequences of Each Dangerous Event?

There may be a multitude of consequences for any single dangerous event. These events may not only affect staff and the workplace itself, but they may also impact local environments and communities.

Consequences may include minor, acute or chronic human harm, fatalities, fires, explosions, property damage, environmental damage, air pollution, road or business closures, neighbourhood evacuations and more.

Risk Score

Once you have collated all this information and data, you can work towards determining a risk score for each hazard.

The Storemasta chemical risk management methodology assigns a risk score out of 10 to each dangerous event. This is based on the severity of the outcome x the likelihood of the incident occurring.

The higher the risk score, the greater priority given to the hazard. Therefore, those hazards at the top of the list will require controls immediately, with staff working their way down the list in the most efficient way possible.

Step 3: Eliminating and Controlling Chemical Hazards

Controlling chemical hazards is the key goal of the risk management methodology.

In Step 3, you will be deciding on suitable control measures for each of the hazards — and prioritising their implementation according to the risk score.

Your risk management methodology will follow the Hierarchy of Controls and assign the most effective control measure to (ideally) eliminate or minimise the harm associated with each chemical hazard.

ESSENTIAL: When deciding on chemical control measures, it’s very important to involve your staff. This is because their health and safety will be directly affected by your decision.

Using the Hierarchy of Controls with Chemical Hazards

The Hierarchy of Controls works as follows:

REMEMBER: You should always aim to eliminate or substitute a hazardous chemical, before implementing engineering controls to contain risk. Your administrative controls will bolster the safety of your other control measures. However, personal protective equipment, while an essential safety measure, should never be used as a sole control method.

Step 4: Sustaining Chemical Compliance with Regular Reviews

Once you have implemented all your control measures, to sustain compliance you now need to return to Step 1 and identify if any new hazards that have been introduced to the workplace.

Sometimes a control measure will introduce a new hazard (especially if you are substituting chemicals or decide to use new personal protective equipment).

Here in Step 4, you will also be putting systems into place for enabling:

• Routine maintenance
• Regular safety inspections on your chemical stores
• Health monitoring of workers
• Periodic risk assessments as new chemicals are introduced or removed

You may also consider engaging external auditors and WHS consultants to review your control measures and provide advice for ongoing safety and compliance. An external assessment conducted at least once a year would ensure that your storage systems and facilities comply with Australian Standards and WHS Regulations.

Chemical Risk Management

Controlling risk isn’t just a good idea for your site – it’s part of your WHS obligations. In this post, we’ve offered a quick introduction to our methodology and chemical risk assessments, but you’ll find more comprehensive instructions in our free eBook. Download How to manage the risk of Hazardous Chemicals in the workplace to learn how to ensure chemical safety in your operations.