Sustainability & Risk / Hazard Abatement / Background Data - Hazards

Hazardous Materials and their Properties

Use this set of tasks to define the materials at your site that contain hazardous substances. First, define the hazardous substances (such as lead); next define the materials that typically contain these substances (such as paint); finally, define the conditions, locations, units, and classifications of these hazards.

Define Hazardous Substances

When managing a commercial or public building, you typically need to manage hazardous substances such as:

radon
asbestos
mold
lead
formaldehyde
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
synthetic mineral fibers (SMFs)

These substances can be naturally-occurring (such as mold and radon), components of other materials found in your building (such as asbestos found in building materials), present from contamination, or released during manufacturing processes.

Note: Hazardous substances are stored in the Problem Types table, which is also used in the Archibus Corrective Maintenance application.

Use this task to define the hazardous substances that you want to monitor.

Hazardous Substance Code	Uniquely identifies the hazardous substance.
Hazardous Substance Description	Enter a description by which those involved in hazmat management will clearly recognize this hazardous substance.
CAS Number	Use this field to record the CAS number of this type of material. This number helps inspectors, abatement workers, and others involved in managing the hazardous material to clearly identify it.
Comments	Enter any comments about the hazardous substance.

With your hazardous substances defined, you will now be able to associate particular substances with the values you develop in other background tables. See the discussion in Developing Hazmat-Specific Background Data.

Define Hazard-Containing Materials

Typically, the hazardous substance that you must manage is not found in isolation but is contained in a larger product. For example, ceiling tiles and pipe coverings might contain asbestos, or a door may be painted with lead-based paint. If you had a demolition project, asbestos might have released to the air and settled in the dirt or on wood trim. Use this task to define the types of items found in your facility, such as ceiling tiles, cement, and fiberglass, that might contain hazardous substances.

When an inspector or abatement worker goes to a site to work with hazardous materials, they will use this list of hazard-containing materials to determine what items to inspect or clean. Thus, the more descriptive and precise the list of items, the better the worker can perform their task.

If you'd like the list of hazard-containing materials to show only items that contain a specific hazardous substance, enter this substance in the filter at the top of the view. For example, you may wish to display a list of the types of items that might contain lead paint.

Hazardous Substance	Enter the hazardous substance contained in this type of item.
Material Code	Uniquely identify the type of item that contains the hazardous substance.
Material Name	Enter a descriptive name by which those involved in hazmat management will clearly recognize this item. Inspectors and workers will use this value when going to site and looking for items to inspect or clean.
Material Description	Enter a description of this item.

Define Material Location Types

Use this table to define the types of areas in the building--such as elevator shafts, crawl spaces, roofs, and air ducts--in which the hazard-containing materials may be found. When managers generate assessment records for managing hazmat, they can use this location type to designate the specific area within a room, floor, or building that should be assessed and managed. Since hazardous material can be located anywhere within an area, setting the specific type of location within the area focuses the assessment and ensures that specific areas are managed.

Enter the location type code, name, and a description. To make it easier to filter and select Hazmat background data such as location types, you can optionally associate the location type with one specific hazardous substance by completing the Hazardous Substance field. Use this approach when a particular location type will be used for only one substance. For example, if a location type of Ceiling will only be associated with asbestos, then enter Asbestos in the Hazardous Substance field for that location type. When subsequently working with asbestos assessments and selecting a location type for an asbestos assessment records, the location type selection list will show only those records whose hazardous substance field value is either Asbestos or blank.

On the other hand, if you wish to check a location type for all hazardous substances at one time, do not complete the Hazardous Substance field for a location type.

Define Material Conditions

Use this task to define a list of conditions by which inspectors or other personnel can classify an area containing hazardous substance. Typical values are Damaged, Satisfactory, Potential for Damage. When defining conditions, you may want to research the types of conditions used by the regulatory agencies that govern specific hazardous substances. For example, the provided sample value of "Damaged or Potential for Damage" is a typical condition as defined by the US EPA for asbestos management.

Define Material Classifications

The government agency that regulates hazardous substances typically has a set of classifications by which they organize hazardous substances. For example, in the US the EPA AHERA (Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act) defines categories indicating the danger level that an instance of asbestos presents. Use this table to define the classifications under which hazardous materials typically found at your site will fall.

Note that a hazardous substance may fall under more than one classification; for example, if it is found in a school it may be subject to both AHERA and EPA classifications. Therefore, when you create assessment items to manage instances of hazardous substances, you can assign up to three classifications to an item.

Hazardous Substance	The hazardous substance to which this classification pertains. Typically, since classifications apply to specific substances, you will want to complete this field with the exact substance to which a classification pertains.
Material Classification Code	Uniquely identifies the classification or category.
Classification Name	Enter a descriptive name of the category that those involved in hazmat management will clearly recognize.
Classification Standard	To further organize your classifications, you might wish to enter a more general grouping for the classifications that your site typically encounters. You can then use this same value for other classifications that fall within this grouping. For example, if you are a multinational company with offices in the US and the UK, you could enter "US EPA" as the standard for your EPA-based categories and you could enter "UK HSC" for categories defined by the UK Health and Safety Commission. Note the Classification Standard value is not stored in its own table to act as a validating value for other fields. Thus, you must be sure to enter it exactly the same way in each record if you want to use this value to filter your data.
Classification Description	Enter a description of this classification.

Define Material Units

Define the units--such as gallons, percentage, ounces, or square feet-- in which you measure hazard-containing materials and lab results. For example, if an inspector is testing for asbestos in carpet, they would need to choose the units by which carpet is measured. If the unit is specific to a certain hazardous substance, you can optionally complete the Hazardous Substance field.

Note: Because Units are stored as records in the database and not as an enumeration list, they are not translated as part of the core. To provide Unit values described in other languages, the Business Process Owner can enter values for translated Units as needed. The translated Units you enter are included in the Units list when users are making entries.