Sustainability & Risk / Hazard Abatement / Background Data - Hazards

Hazardous Material Sample Compositions and Laboratories

As part of the process of managing hazardous materials, hazmat professionals will need to test for the presence of substances by collecting samples and sending them to labs for testing. When the lab returns its results, the lab report will tell you the chemicals and compounds that the sample is composed of. Use these tasks to establish your testing laboratories and to define the types of chemical and compounds that the labs will reference in their results.

Define Material Sample Composition

Use this task to create a list of substances and chemicals that will likely be found in a sample that you send out for testing. When a lab returns the results of a sample, it will document that it found such substances as Amosite and Tremolite in the sample. You can then electronically record these results by choosing from a list of items defined with this task.

Since a lab may find in your sample substances that are not chemicals (such as animal hair, foam, or wood fiber), the sample data includes these items. For example, an older building may have been built with horse-hair plaster, and a sample of plaster from this building could contain animal hair. Accordingly, you would need to have animal hair as a value to choose from your list of sample compositions.

SDS Lookup: When completing this form, you have the option to look up chemical names and CAS numbers recorded in the SDS activity by clicking the SDS Lookup button. Clicking this button presents a list of chemicals for which you have entered a Safety Data Sheet in the SDS application. Click on a chemical in the list and the Sample Composition Code, Sample Composition Description, and the CAS Number are automatically entered in the Material Sample Composition Substance or Chemical form.

Description of the data you can enter for hazardous sample composition:

Hazardous Substance Code	If this item is typically associated with a specific hazardous substance, you may enter it here by choosing from the list of hazardous substances. For example, you may wish to associate Amosite with asbestos, but not associate a hazardous substance with wood fiber
Sample Composition Code	Enter an identifying code by which those involved in hazmat management will clearly recognize this item. Employees involved in entering test results of samples collected on site will need to choose this value from a list of possible items found in a sample.
Sample Composition Description	Enter a descriptive name for a substance which might be found in a sample from your building sent for testing.
CAS Number	Use this field to record the CAS number of this type of material. This number helps to clearly identify the substance.
Is Hazardous?	Indicate whether or not this substance is hazardous. This is handy for later filtering your sample results by danger.
Description	Enter any comments about the substance.

Define Material Testing Laboratories

Use this task to enter the details of the labs to which hazmat workers and inspectors send samples. In order to clearly document your procedures, be sure to complete the Lab Certification Number field so that you will have this accreditation information available when you work with assessment items.

Note that records that you enter with this task are stored in the Vendors table and the system automatically completes the Vendor Type field with "Testing Lab".

See Also

Back to Developing Hazmat-Specific Background Data