I am fairly certain you only need Safety Data Sheets for substances you are using

Thanks Chrissy.

Good morning

You do need to have the SDS for all chemicals that you have on site.

Instead of keeping hard copies, use electronic copies. Our chemicals are not delivered with a SDS, when the order is placed the electronic copy is downloaded.

Ensure your workers has access to the copies via electronic devices. WorkSafe expectation from us was that employees had to find the sds within 5min.

Kind regards
Sandra

Hi again
Information can be found in "New rules for hazardous substances" - WorkSafe Guideline
See page 7 and 11.
Kind regards

Hi Tanya,

What an interesting question! The US (OSHA) requires an SDS to be kept for 30 years as part of the employees exposure records.
Could we then say under HSWA General Risk and Workplace Management Regs - s32 Duties relating to exposure monitoring - that the same thing applies to NZ as records must be kept for 30 years, and measurement and evaluation of exposure to a health hazard would include the data from an SDS??

I know for us, this would be a paperwork (electronic or otherwise) nightmare, but it's got me thinking.

Thanks everyone. We were owned by an American company but no longer (and yes the OSHA requirements are to keep SDS for 30 years, and yes a nightmare). We do keep SDS for all chemicals on site but if I can discard ALL the other SDS, then that will be a good day.

Hi,

A safety data sheet is only valid for 5 years in NZ.
We don't see the need to keep the ones older than that.

HSWA (General Risk and HSNO regulations) does not say the SDS to be kept 30 years only that records for employee health monitoring to kept 30 years
If your company is owned by US then they can impose their regulations otherwise you apply NZ legislation.

Kind regards

Hi Tanya,
Why don't you scan the old ones and put them into a Sharepoint file for chemicals no longer used.
Maybe rename the file to the last used year, chemical name and recycle the paper SDS.
That way you can find it under five minutes.

I also think that it depends what you are doing with the chemicals.
For example Worksafe advised us that we did not need to keep the SDS once we stop storing the chemical but that is because we do not use or open the chemicals onsite. We are a solely a storage and transport facility for closed containers. However, if your staff are using the chemicals and therefore are exposed to them on a regular basis this might be different and might be relevant information as part of health monitoring.

I'm not a hoarder but I tend to chuck nothing away (you should see some of my old OSH resources!)

Id just stick them in alphabetical order and run them through a scanner then into the bin. Drive space is dirt cheap nowadays.