Storing dangerous goods and hazardous chemicals

Two names for overlapping things

Under the model WHS laws, hazardous chemicals, in Safe Work Australia’s words, “are any substance, mixture or article classified under a hazard category in the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals”. Some are not treated as hazardous under the model WHS Regulations, including infectious substances, radioactive sources and chemicals that are hazardous only to the environment.

Dangerous goods is the transport term. The model WHS Regulations don’t apply to transporting hazardous chemicals; by road or rail, Safe Work Australia points to the National Transport Commission’s Australian Dangerous Goods Code (the ADG Code). The two meet on a storage site’s signs: placards use the form, dimensions and class labels set by the ADG Code, and GHS pictograms must not be used for placarding.

Victoria still uses “dangerous goods” for storage too. WorkSafe Victoria defines them by what they can do: goods with hazardous properties such as being corrosive, flammable, combustible, explosive, oxidising or reactive with water.

Some of the duties

A person conducting a business or undertaking (a PCBU) that involves hazardous chemicals has specific work health and safety duties. Safe Work Australia lists “Some of the duties”, in its words, so treat what follows as a start, not the whole set.

Managing the risks

Safe Work Australia puts it this way: “You have a duty to identify, assess and control risks in the workplace.” To weigh the risk a hazardous chemical poses, it says to think about:

• the chemical’s hazardous properties
• how it could react with another substance or mixture, and any hazardous substances that reaction could produce
• the kind of work being done with the chemical
• any structure, plant or work system that could interact with the chemical or involve it.

Its Model Code of Practice: Managing risks of hazardous chemicals in the workplace goes further into assessing and controlling these risks.

Keeping workers safe

You must store hazardous chemicals safely and tell workers about their hazards, including by:

• labelling all hazardous chemical containers and pipework correctly, with warning placards and safety signs
• storing the chemicals the right way
• keeping a hazardous chemical register, with a copy of the current safety data sheet (SDS) for each chemical on it
• keeping a manifest of hazardous chemicals once the quantity goes over the manifest threshold
• displaying placards if the quantity is over the placard threshold
• informing, training, instructing and supervising workers.

Exposure standards and health monitoring

Safe Work Australia also says: “You must not exceed workplace exposure standards for certain airborne hazardous chemicals. You must also provide health monitoring to workers for certain hazardous chemicals.”

Maintaining the work environment

To maintain the work environment, it adds that you should: contain spills of hazardous chemicals with a spill containment system where one is needed; control sources of ignition, and stop flammable and combustible substances building up; maintain bulk containers of hazardous chemicals and their pipework, and check that they are stable and supported; and decommission old storage and handling systems correctly and safely.

The container

When you store chemicals, Safe Work Australia says the container must be in a sound condition, safely contain the chemical and be compatible with it, and that “Someone must not be able to mistake the container and packaging for food or drink.”

A hazardous chemical is stored in bulk when its container can hold more than 500 L or 500 kg, or when it is a solid kept as one undivided quantity of more than 500 kg. Bulk containers need a placard, and they and any pipework or attachments are to be secured to foundations and supports so they are stable and don’t move.

Storage and handling systems must be used only for their intended purpose, checked for safety before use, and backed by training. Empty them before disposal; if a system can’t be emptied, label it as if it still holds hazardous chemicals. Safe Work Australia’s Managing risks of storing chemicals in the workplace guide covers incompatible chemicals in more detail.

Underground storage

If you stop using underground storage, you must empty it and remove it. If it held flammable gases or flammable liquids and has been empty for 2 years, it counts as abandoned, and you must notify the WHS regulator in your state or territory of the abandoned tank. Safe Work Australia’s duties page also says to tell the regulator about abandoned underground tanks that once held flammable liquids or gases as soon as possible.

Flammable substances, asphyxiants and combustible dusts

These can create hazardous atmospheres, and they carry specific duties of their own. Safe Work Australia says the duties apply to:

• storing flammable substances, asphyxiants and combustible dusts correctly in confined spaces
• whether the storage area is suitable for containing spills
• the “restriction on supplying and access to minors under the age of 16 years”.

Its Storage of flammable liquids guide covers these duties in more detail.

The register and the manifest are different documents

Your register does not need to include chemicals that are not classified as hazardous, hazardous chemicals bought or used as a consumer product for which you don’t need an SDS, or chemicals in transit that are unopened, unused and stored for 5 days or less. Chemicals in transit may still belong on it if they are at your workplace in large amounts or stored there frequently.

The register does not replace the duty to make safety information about every chemical, hazardous or not, available to everyone in the workplace: safe use, handling and storage, which the label and SDS carry.

The manifest must be kept at a location agreed with local emergency services, be visible on your site plan and always be available to them. Safe Work Australia has a template for each document.

Signs, placards and the thresholds

Safety signs go next to the hazard, clearly visible to people approaching it. Placards are for emergency services, and are required once stored quantities pass the placard threshold in Schedule 11 of the model WHS Regulations.

The outer warning placard says HAZCHEM in red letters on a white or silver background, and goes at each entrance where emergency services may enter.

HAZCHEM

One counting rule catches people out. When a category 4 flammable liquid, diesel for example, sits in the same spill compound as category 1, 2 or 3 liquids, it is counted as if it had the classification of the liquid there with the lowest flash point. Safe Work Australia’s example: 1,000 L of category 1 and 1,000 L of category 4 in one compound counts as 2,000 L of category 1.

Above the manifest quantity you must give your WHS regulator written notice, and send local emergency services a copy of your emergency plan.

If something goes wrong

Safe Work Australia says you must tell the regulator as quickly as possible when:

• a person has died
• a person is seriously injured or ill and needs urgent immediate treatment
• a person was exposed to a substance and needed treatment within 48 hours
• a dangerous incident happened.

You must leave the site of the incident and stay out of it, except where you need to help someone who is injured, remove a person who has died, do what is essential to make the site safe, or prevent further notifiable incidents. Police investigations and a regulator’s or inspector’s permission override that.

Victoria and South Australia

Victoria

Victoria regulates storage under the Dangerous Goods Act 1985 and the Dangerous Goods (Storage and Handling) Regulations 2022. Specific duties apply above the quantities in Schedule 2 of those Regulations, and WorkSafe Victoria’s dangerous goods calculator helps an occupier work out where they stand.

An occupier includes the owner, someone who exercises control under a mortgage, lease or franchise, and someone normally or occasionally in charge of the premises, such as a manager or employee. Occupiers must eliminate the risks of storing and handling dangerous goods or, if that’s not practicable, reduce them so far as is reasonably practicable, considering substitution with lower-risk goods and reducing the quantity kept.

WorkSafe Victoria’s calculator page goes on to set out the occupier’s other general duties. In summary:

• Make sure the risk to people who store and handle the goods is eliminated, or reduced. Reducing it can mean switching to less dangerous goods, holding a smaller quantity, keeping the goods apart from people and from other dangerous goods, engineering controls, administrative controls, or personal protective equipment (PPE).
• Use administrative controls or PPE on their own only where it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the risk, or to reduce it by switching goods, holding less, keeping the goods apart or engineering controls.
• Review the risk controls, and revise them if needed, before any change to a process, system or work that is likely to change the risk, and whenever the controls are not controlling the risk well enough.
• Keep a dangerous goods register, with copies of any safety data sheets (SDS) that apply.

Above the quantities in Schedule 2, more duties apply. WorkSafe Victoria says they exist so that, in a fire, spill or explosion, emergency responders know what dangerous goods are on site, how much and where:

• Above the placard quantity: display placards at the premises, with the correct placards for every container or other storage of goods in bulk, and for packaged goods stored above the Schedule 2 quantities.
• Above the manifest quantity: have an emergency plan developed with regard to written advice from the emergency services authority, Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV); notify WorkSafe of the dangerous goods stored and handled there every two years, and also whenever another notifiable event happens; and keep a manifest up to date.
• Above the fire protection quantity: make sure fire protection is adequate for the types and quantities of goods on the premises, and get written advice from FRV on fire protection and have regard to it.

WorkSafe Victoria points to its code of practice for the storage and handling of dangerous goods for more on these duties, and notes that industrial sites holding large quantities of hazardous substances and dangerous goods may be major hazard facilities under the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017.

South Australia

Safe Work Australia notes that South Australia has a separate dangerous substances licensing scheme, and asks businesses there to contact SafeWork SA.