Many countries around the world are embracing what the United Nations suggested, the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of labeling and categorizing of chemicals with the intent to accomplish several aims.
The primary reason is for health safety among workers involved in the series of handling, processing, transportation and storage of harmful chemicals. Another is environmental protection. A combined system of grouping shall manage trade and commerce across the borders and recognize the chemicals together with its dangerous properties. Some nations who have not adopted the system yet while the others already did had numerous ways of categorization and classification that results to more room for mistakes and increased risks. The improvement of GHS safety data sheets was grounded on thorough research and further studies that focuses to solve problems of lack of uniformity and discrepancies while not reducing the quality of protection. The arrangement process take into account the intrinsic dangerous characteristic of a chemicals and their origination and their reaction to water, air and other chemicals when exposed to different environment. Due to efforts, GHS SDS were created in a well-thought-out way with each unit can be easily accessed by those who are in the sequence of processing, transportation and storage. For several years, GHS underwent many editions and nations assumed one or another while making known their own rules. Among the twists of SDS is the determination of presence of hazardous elements must be through in full thrust without making unethical compromise on classified information of originality of formulations. A very significant characteristic is that of proper employee training in the utilization of SDS and appropriate processes in relation to handling chemicals and the training must be accompanied by interpretation of safety labels and safety data sheets.
There are several suggestions for implementation. For example, a distributor-importer can merely acquire sealed ampules of chemicals encrypted with GHS labels. It is their utmost responsibility to ensure the clearness and completeness of the labels. When a manufacturer gets a tightly sealed ampule and it is later opened, he has to update the data sheet and make it accessible to workers who are controlling the chemicals and label it as secondary ampules. Due to this, the way of application of communication of the hazardous part, in the label, differs in accordance to product classification and phase in its cycle.
Remember that anomalies and surprising exceptions are part in handling dangerous chemical substances that you must be aware. In situations of physically-related risks such as explosives and flammability, it is recommended that you look for UNSCETDG tests. In GHS, only the existing data can be accessed, if ever a new data comes in, the classification system will make adjustments so the distributor or manufacturers must keep on track of these information.
Therefore, GHS plays a significant role in creating uniformity in categorization and classification of chemical substances but along with it are various anomalies and surprises.