Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) describe material properties and the protective measures to use when handling or storing hazardous materials. California law requires that employers make available the SDS for every hazardous material used in the workplace.
Hazardous Chemicals and SDSs
The presence of hazardous materials is not limited to labs. Familiar materials such as cleaning agents, paints, photocopy supplies, art materials, and car supplies may also contain hazardous components
At SF State, SDSs can be found in binders or folders as well as online searches and through the Risk and Safety Solutions (RSS) CHEMICALS application. For more information, about using RSS software to find SDSs, select the links below.
Explaining Safety Data Sheets
SFSU Quick Links
Frequently Asked Questions about SDSs
Safety Data Sheets (SDS), formerly known as Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), are documents containing 16 sections of detailed health and safety information for chemicals,chemical compounds, and chemical mixtures. SDSs are typically written by the manufacturer or supplier of the material and provide more detailed information than what is included on the label.
SDSs tell users the hazards for the material, how to use the material safely, what to expect if recommendations are not followed, how to recognize symptoms of exposure, and what to do in case of an emergency or spill.
Managers, supervisors and the "responsible persons" for areas that work with hazardous materials, such as laboratories, art studios, and workshops are required to provide access to SDSs for those materials as a reference. Responsible persons may designate someone in their group to be chemical inventory coordinator/manager.
SDSs may be kept as hard copies, on a disc drive or online and must be associated with the chemical inventory on file for the work area.
Laboratories and certain other work areas at SF State use the cloud-based RSS Chemicals platform with the RSS SDS app. RSS updates SDSs in the system as new versions become available.
Basic Procedure
- Review tutorials for how to use RSS Chemicals software.
- Obtain a supply of barcode tagging labels from EH&S.
- Place a barcode label on each chemical container you are adding.
- Sign into the mobile RSS Chemicals app to add new chemicals to the online inventory
- Scan the container bar code and enter the label information into your inventory
- Remove chemical containers from the inventory when they are discarded or empty.
- Online, attach an SDS document to each chemical container in your inventory.
- Verify your inventory at least annually.
Policy
The SDSs should reflect the current chemical inventory and therefore be updated and maintained as the inventory changes. SDSs must also be accessible to all personnel working in the area and referenced whenever new materials are added.
Principal Investigators and other supervisory faculty or staff are responsible for keeping the hazardous chemical inventory current and making the corresponding, most current SDSs received readily accessible to employees in their work area(s) during each work shift.
SDSs can also be kept in any form, including operating procedures, and may be designed to cover groups of hazardous chemicals in a work area where it may be more appropriate to address the hazards of a process. However, the required information must be readily accessible for each hazardous chemical during each work shift to affected
employees.
Accessible means employees do not have to ask for an SDS (e.g., not stored in a locked cabinet or office).
Hard copies are preferred. These can be kept in a binder or file that is unlocked and easily found by all affected employees.
Electronic access is acceptable as long as no barriers to immediate employee access are created (e.g., employee knows how to operate hardware/software; faxes can be received; there is a backup
procedure) and hard copies can still be provided upon request and in emergencies.
A “chemical” is any substance, or mixture of substances
A “hazardous chemical” is any chemical that is classified as a physical or health hazard, a simple asphyxiant, combustible dust, pyrophoric gas,or a hazard not otherwise classified, or is included in the California list of Hazardous Substances.
SDSs are required for the use, storage, and transport of each "hazardous chemical" present in the workplace.
Many consumer products do not have an SDS because they do not have hazardous chemical components as defined by the OSHA Global Harmonized System (GHS) of hazard classification and labeling.
- SDSs are not required for non-hazardous chemicals or products (have no hazards as defined by GHS.
- Example: Expo Dry Erase Markers for white boards
- An SDS is available dated 1/2/2020, but isn't required by the HazCom standard
- Many consumer product manufacturers have stopped providing or updating SDSs for exempt products
Note: Expo Dry Erase Liquid Cleaner and Wipes does have an SDS available even though it has no GHS hazards.