A hazardous product refers to any product, material, mixture or substance that has been classified in one more hazard class of the Canadian Hazardous Product Regulations. Commonly, the term chemical safety is used to describe the safe use, handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous products. The contents of this page are to provide resources for the use of hazardous products at BCIT to ensure the health and safety of the BCIT Community, and to help employees use hazardous products in a way that meets regulatory requirements.
Chemical hazard exposure control pans on ShareSpace.
- Lead Exposure ECP
- Reproductive Toxins ECP
- Reproductive Toxins Appendix A
All BCIT employees are required to complete WHMIS Training per Occupational Health and Safety Regulation Section 5.3.
The HSE Division will now provide two options for WHMIS training and education.
- Additional Module under the Employee OHS Orientation Course called “WHMIS for Offices”
- Name Change from WHMIS to “WHMIS for Non-Office Areas”
Every new employee is still required to take the Employee OHS Orientation course within 30 days of hire. However, only the new employees who work outside of office settings are required to take the “WHMIS for Non-Office Areas” course within 30 days of hire.
The training covers the basics of working with hazardous materials, including:
- How to read and use product safety date sheets (SDS).
- Requirements for labelling hazardous products.
- How to approach working safely with hazardous products.
In addition to the online training, all employees must be trained by their supervisor on how to work safely with hazardous products and access all necessary resource documents (SDS, procedures) for their role. This must be completed during the checklist in the mandatory online Employee OHS Orientation.
BCIT HSE has implemented a software called CampusOptics, which includes a centralized chemical inventory. Employees registered as inventory holders who have submitted their inventories to BCIT HSE should be able to access the system and view their inventories. For help navigating and using the system, please refer to the this guide or feel free to contact BCIT HSE for assistance. If you cannot find your inventory within the system, this can mean that either you have not been linked to your inventory, or the inventory has not been uploaded into the system/sent to BCIT. If either of these may apply, contact BCIT HSE for assistance.
The expectations around hazardous product inventories is that they should reflect the maximum quantities of any given product that you would be storing within any given year. Your inventory should be verified and updated at least once per year, although more frequent verifications may be required for certain products.
If you do not have an inventory yet, you will need to make one before it can be uploaded into the system. A template can be found here under “Resources”, but in general the inventory needs to include the following information:
- Product Name (as per SDS) and Manufacturer, and state (Solid, Liquid, or Gas)
- Location (building and room number, and any specific location details (e.g. flammable cabinet, acids, cabinet, shelf A, etc.).
- Number of containers, container size, and total amount of the product.
- Responsible BCIT Employee for the product.
- Location of SDS or a link to/copy of SDS.
Once you have an inventory, reach out to BCIT HSE for assistance with having upload onto the central inventory system.
There are several considerations and requirements for storing hazardous products. The key needs are:
- Ensuring they are stored within a fire compartment (i.e. room with 4-walls; flammables cabinet) and not accessible to the public.
- Stored based on their chemical classification and properties (storing similar chemicals together).
- A group of similar chemicals are stored separated from other chemical classes (e.g. not storing incompatible chemicals together such as acids and bases, oxidizers and flammables, etc.).
- Chemicals are stored such that they can be container if spilled (contained from spilling onto floor, into drains, or such that they could impact containers of incompatible products).
- Chemicals are stored below eye-level.
There are several guides available regarding chemical storage, and if you have any questions please contact BCIT HSE.
Guide: Assigning Primary Hazard Class
Departments must safely store their hazardous waste until they can arrange disposal. Hazardous waste has the same storage requirements as a hazardous product, however there are some key requirements that are often missed:
- Hazardous products cannot usually be thrown away through normal waste streams or poured down the sink.
- Waste containers must be appropriately labelled with a supplier or workplace label (in addition to being labelled as waste).
- Waste containers must be in good condition (clean, undamaged, etc.).
- Waste containers must be sealed.
- Waste must be stored as per its contents hazard classification and separated from incompatible products or waste.
- Empty waste containers are considered hazardous unless they have been flushed out correctly.
BCIT Logistics handles hazardous waste disposal. To request hazardous waste disposal, please complete their online request. A separate request from must be submitted for each different product to be disposed, though multiple containers of the same product can be requested through a single form.
Reproductive toxins, sensitizers, and carcinogens
Reproductive toxins, sensitizers and carcinogens can cause significant health risks to workers and students. WorkSafeBC has assigned special designations for these substances and requires that exposure to these subtances must be minimized.
BCIT is committed to reducing the use of reproductive toxins, sensitizers, and carcinogens in the work place.
BCIT is implementing this exposure control plan in accordance with WorkSafeBC Occupational Health and Safety regulations. The plan outlines procedures to enable workers’ and students’ exposure to these substance to be “as low as reasonably achievable” and well below established exposure control limits.
Everyone who is using these substances is required to develop their specific work procedures incorporating the elements of this exposure control plan.
Depending on the location, quantity and properties of the spilled material, the number of people affected and the manner to respond, a spill can pose serious risk to human health and/or safety, causing damages to properties, interfering with normal operation of the campus or contaminating the environment.
This program addresses general principles and strategies for spill prevention and response and provides guidance for schools/departments and programs at BCIT to develop task specific spill response procedures.
The goal of the program is to prevent spills at BCIT, minimize the damages caused by spills, and ensure compliance with federal, provincial, and WorkSafeBC regulations, environmental protection legislation and the best practices regarding the prevention, mitigation, control, cleanup and disposal of spills