Safety and Responsible Care

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was established in 1970 as part of the U.S. Department of Labor to assure safe and 

Fundamentals of Industrial Chemistry Pharmaceuticals, Polymers, and Business, First Editim. John A. Tyrell. 2014 John Wiley Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wley S(ms, Inc. 

Sometimes it is not the dangerous chemicals that result in tragedy. I worked at one chemical site when they celebrated their 25 anniversary since the facility was built. This site had over one thousand workers and performed chemical operations from small laboratory scale to pilot plant and production. They produced chemicals in the order of hundreds of millions of pounds per year. Poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide, chlorine, and 

Unfortunately there are other cases of nitrogen asphyxiation. In November 2005, two contract workers performing maintenance at a Valero refinery died. One died while attempting to rescue the other. The Chemical Safety Board investigated this accident and issued a case study and safety video to help prevent more tragedies from nitrogen. 

It would be a mistake to conclude that chemical tragedies only occur in industrial settings. Unfortunately there can be household accidents and accidents in academia. For example, in 2009 a researcher at UCLA died from injuries sustained in a fire that started when the plunger came out of the syringe she was using to transfer a solution of t-butyl lithium [2]. 

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Quantitative Risk Assessment. Previous sections in this chapter dealt with the identification, measurement, and mitigation of hazards in a chlor-alkali plant. Plant safety and Responsible Care programs define the objectives of continuous improvement in safety performance. The discussion of mitigation immediately above naturally leads on to the larger question of the most direct and cost-effective approach to this improvement. 

Procedures/responsibilities organograms, supported by description, are used to describe the Environment, Safety and Quality Control and Responsible Care organisations. The director of environment, safety and quality control is shown as being responsible overall to the president, and is supported by ESH groups at both corporate and divisional level. Each plant has its own environment, safety and quality control department or section. 

The theme of the 1999 Responsible Care report is Contractor Safety . As well as specific sections on this topic the CER includes sections on Safety, Health, Environment, Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Responsible Care . It also presents a Company Profile and Review by site , and includes Emission data and a section titled Where it still went wrong . 

Chemical Manufacturers Association, Improving Air Quality Guidance for Estimating Fugitive Emissions from Equipment, 2nd ed., CMA, Washington, D.C., 1989. Chemical Manufacturers Association, Responsible Care, Employee Health and Safety Code of Management Practices, CMA, Washington, D.C., 1992. 

Responsible Care is the incentive sponsored by the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA). Any CMA company must embrace the philosophy of continuous improvements of health, safety, and environmental efforts accompanied by an open communication to the pubHc about products and their production. Thus the total impact of any product on the environment, from the extraction of raw materials, their beneftciation, transportation, production of final product, and disposal of the product at the end of its useful life, must be taken into consideration. 

Chemical Manufacturers Association Code. In 1988, the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) adopted an initiative called Responsible Care A PubHc Commitment (33). Members of the CMA commit themselves, as an obligation of membership, to improving performance in response to pubHc concerns about the impact of chemicals on health, safety, and environmental quaUty. 

One of the six elements of Responsible Care is the Codes of Management Practice, and one of the codes is the Process Safety Code of Management Practices (34). This code emphasi2es management commitment and accountabiUty, information sharing, and community relations, but also includes 11 of the 14 specific elements of the legislated process safety management standards developed later. 

Responsible Care (139), a program initiated by the CMA in 1988, is designed to make day-by-day improvements in all aspects of health, safety, and the environment. 

Experimental chemistry is a very dangerous occupation and extreme care and adequate safety precautions should be taken at all times. Although we have stated the safety measures that have to be taken under specific entries these are by no means exhaustive and some may have been unknowingly or accidentally omitted. The experimenter without prior knowledge or experience must seek further safety advice on reagents and procedures from experts in the field before undertaking the purification of any material. We take no responsibility whatsoever if any mishaps occur when using any of the procedures described in this book. 

Responsible Care Management Systems for Health, Safety and Environment (2nd edn) (1995)... 

The Chemical Manufacturers Association s Code of Management Practice for Process Safety is oriented toward the chemical industry, and describes the elements of a process safety management program as part of CMA s Responsible Care program. 

Even a quick examination of Exhibits 2-5 and 2-6 points out the considerable duplication that exists within Xmple, Inc. Not only are there separate management systems delivering their three programs (PSM, occupational safety and industrial hygiene, and environment) there are also several duplicate programs. For example, storage of hazardous chemicals and spill response are covered by all three systems. The lists are also incomplete undoubtedly Xmple, Inc. implements all requirements of Responsible Care , but it is listed only under occupational safety and industrial hygiene. 

The rights, safety, and well-being of the trial subjects should prevail over the interests of science or society Prior assessment should indicate that the anticipated benefits would outweigh any foreseeable risks or inconveniences The medical care given to, and medical decisions made on behalf of subjects should always be the responsibility of qualified medical personnel... 

The company was a private label manufacturer of home maintenance and personal care products. Its laboratory would be involved with new product development, evaluation of raw materials, testing of competitive products, and quality control. Laboratory personnel would also be responsible for chemical safety in the plant and for proper waste disposal. 

One can see by the complexity of these types of manufacturing procedures that much care and attention to detail must be maintained by the manufacturer. This sterile manufacturing procedure must then be validated to prove that no more than 3 containers in a lot of 3000 containers (0.1%) are nonsterile. Ultimately, it is the manufacturer s responsibility to ensure the safety and efficacy of the manufacturing process and the absence of any adverse effect on the product, such as the possible formation of substances toxic to the eye, an ever-present possibility with gas sterilization or when using ionizing radiation. For ophthalmic products sterilized by terminal sterilization (sterilization in the final sealed container, e.g., steam under pressure), the sterilization cycle must be validated to ensure sterility at a probability of 106 or greater. 

Association (ABMA), recommendations for boiler-water limits, 23 221t American Chemical Society Committee on Nomenclature and Notation, 17 385 American Chemistry Council (ACC) 14 204 codes of management practices, 21 580 Process Safety Code, 21 831 Responsible Care initiatives, 25 337 American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH),... 

The concept of Product Stewardship in the polyurethanes industry is discussed, as one of the six elements of the Responsible Care programme used by companies. A Product Stewardship programme is said to demonstrate commitment to Responsible Care and ensures health, safety and environmental protection through active assessment of products throughout their life cycle from... 

If your product can pose a chemical reactivity hazard by itself or in combination with other materials, good product stewardship includes providing safety-related information to customers and users. Other aspects of product stewardship, some of which are also applicable to chemical reactivity hazard management, are outlined in the American Chemistry Council s Product Stewardship Responsible Care Code (ACC 2001). 

Several voluntary industry initiatives, such as ACC s Responsible Care and NACD s Responsible Distribution Process (RDP), provide guidance on process safety management for chemical manufacturers and distributors. However, no voluntary industry initiatives list specific codes or requirements for reactive hazard management. 

Both ACC and SOCMA have programs to promote good practices among their member companies in the area of chemical process safety.59 In 1989, ACC developed the Responsible Care Process Safety Code60 to prevent fires, explosions, and accidental chemical releases. The code and its accompanying resource guidelines include a series of recommended management practices. 

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