Safety Training Program Highlights

About the ANSI Material Safety Data Sheet

Like it or not, hazardous chemicals are a part of our lives. Many of us work around them every day. But every chemical has different hazards. It is important that we know how to protect ourselves from these hazards, as well as what we should do in an emergency involving a chemical that we are working with.

The answers to these and other important questions about hazardous chemicals can be found on the chemicals' Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS).

The MSDS is basically a guide for the safe use of a hazardous chemical. It provides information about handling, storing, transporting and working with the chemical safely.

However, reading and relating to information in Material Safety Data Sheets has often been a problem for many employees.

Material Safety Data Sheets come in a variety of formats, with information arranged in different ways.

Recently, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) created a standard format for Material Safety Data Sheets.

This format is being adopted by most major chemical manufacturers, as well as by many users of potential hazardous chemicals. As are result, the ANSI MSDS format is well on its way to becoming an industry "standard".

Employees need to know how the ANSI MSDS is organized and where they can find important information on it.

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ANSI MSDS