Hazardous chemicals are found across every industry, and company leaders must switch to alternatives with fewer toxic ingredients to ensure the safety and sustainability of their workplaces.
In this article, we'll go over the importance of transitioning to safer chemical products and suggest better alternatives to common workplace chemicals.
Current Chemical Safety Protocols Are Inadequate
First, it’s important to understand what “hazardous” means regarding chemicals. Hazardous chemicals fall into one or more of these five categories:
- Flammable: Can easily ignite when exposed to heat or electricity
- Explosive: Can detonate or explode when exposed to heat, sudden shock or pressure
- Corrosive: Can burn through living tissue
- Toxic: Can cause injury or death through ingestion, inhalation or absorption
- Radioactive: Can damage or destroy cells and chromosomes
Preventing harm to employees involves communicating the specific risks associated with a chemical product and implementing measures to actively protect workers from exposure. However, many of the methods currently used have inherent limitations:
- Labeling: All hazardous chemical containers must have labels displaying clear warnings and handling instructions. These labels do a fine job raising awareness of the chemical's dangerous properties, but they can't make someone handle the product safely. It's only a matter of time before inattention and human error cause a chemical incident.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): PPE, such as gloves, goggles, and coveralls, can protect workers from contact with unsafe chemicals, but this must always be treated as a last line of defense in case other, more effective control measures fail.
- Safety Data Sheets (SDS): OSHA requires workplaces to keep Safety Data Sheets for each chemical product kept on site. These documents provide critical information about the hazards associated with the chemical, safe handling and storage instructions, and appropriate disposal procedures. Like the labels on chemical containers, Safety Data Sheets cannot entirely eliminate human error or carelessness from the equation.
- Permissible Exposure Limits (PEL): PELs specify safe levels of exposure to various chemical products. Yet simply adhering to PELs isn't ideal since many of them are outdated and inaccurate by OSHA's own admission. Short-Term Exposure Limits (STELs) and Long-Term Exposure Limits (LTELs) also don't account for each employee's underlying health risks, the overall working conditions, or the misuse of hazardous chemicals.
- HAZMAT Training: Making sure that anyone who works with chemical products is trained to handle them safely is an important step. Unfortunately, this does little to help in cases of theft or sabotage. The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) has identified 300 hazardous chemicals of interest to prevent their exploitation, but a better alternative would be to remove them from the workplace altogether.
(Learn more in Everything You Need to Know About Safety Data Sheets)
Why Switch to Safer Alternatives?
While PPE, administrative fixes, and engineering controls are all helpful in mitigating the risks associated with hazardous chemicals, they're not substitutes for higher level controls. After all, no amount of ventilation or PPE can provide as much protection as eliminating the use of harmful chemicals or switching them out for less hazardous alternatives.
Here’s why switching to cleaner alternatives is the best option for occupational health and safety.
Better Living and Working Conditions
Despite their best efforts to avoid dangerous practices, workers suffer more than 190,000 illnesses and 50,000 deaths due to chemical exposure annually. Worse, these numbers underestimate the real extent of the harm because the onset of symptoms can take months or years, meaning that many of those affected will not link their health conditions to the previous exposure that caused or aggravated it.
Using safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals would cause an immediate drop in exposure injuries and fatalities, as well as a significant reduction in a variety of chronic illnesses over the long run.
Reduced Operational Costs
Transitioning to safer chemical alternatives can also reduce operational costs, primarily by helping businesses avoid liability. It can also result in measurable improvements to resource utilization, employee productivity, and downtime due to chemical incidents.
Removing hazardous chemicals also means not having to spend more on additional engineering controls and expensive heavy duty PPE. Purchasing safer and sustainable alternatives might cause a temporary increase in costs, but it can be balanced out by long-term savings on control measures.
(Learn about First Aid for Chemical Exposure Incidents)
Substitutes for Common Hazardous Chemicals
Removing toxic chemicals from the workplace is easier said than done. Before making any changes, you must first identify viable alternatives that are effective and won’t cause a major disruption in schedules or operations.
Here are some tried-and-true substitutes for hazardous substances commonly found in warehouses, manufacturing plants, and other workplaces.
Industrial Chemicals
OSHA has identified over 100 toxic industrial chemicals manufactured, stored, and transported worldwide. Their production in large quantities poses a major health risk for employees throughout the supply chain.
Here are safer substitutes for common industrial chemicals:
- Ammonia: Ammonia is a common ingredient in cleaning products, but anhydrous hydrogen chloride is a viable substitute.
- Benzene: Benzene is a nonpolar solvent with many safer alternatives, including pentane, cyclopentane, chloroform, and diethyl ether.
- Ethylene oxide: Ethylene oxide is used to sterilize equipment but is highly flammable and reactive. Common substitutes include hydrogen peroxide, nitrogen dioxide, chlorine dioxide, and peracetic acid.
- Formaldehyde: Formaldehyde is a common ingredient in glues, dyes, textiles and many other materials, making it challenging to replace. Ethyl alcohol, glutaraldehyde and phenoxyethanol are viable options, but these chemicals have health risks of their own.
- Nitric acid: Nitric acid is a chemical used for passivating metal parts to make them corrosion-resistant. Believe it or not, many manufacturers use citric acid instead to achieve the same effect.
- Phosphorus trichloride: This strong-smelling liquid is a common additive in gasoline, textiles and plastics. There has been great progress in developing safer alternatives, such as elemental phosphorus, organophosphorus, red phosphorus, and phosphine.
- Sulfur dioxide: Sulfur dioxide is a widely used manufacturing chemical. However, a recently discovered plasma-enhanced catalytic process may allow businesses to convert it into pure sulfur as a more eco-friendly alternative.
Everyday Products
Many chemical products found in non-industrial workplaces can also be hazardous and should be substituted. While these are by no means as toxic or risky as their industrial counterparts, they are very common, often handled without PPE, and can cause discomfort, irritation, and more serious adverse health effects.
Here are some of the most impactful examples:
- Air fresheners: Cinnamon, vanilla, cloves and other natural elements with pleasant smells are easy alternatives to aerosol air fresheners.
- Paint: Water-based paints are always better than oil-based ones. They’re also safer if you apply them with a brush or roller instead of a spray can.
- Cleaners: Homemade soap, baking soda, vinegar and lemon juice are great substitutes for chemical cleaning products.
- Degreasers: Citrus-based degreasers are safer and cleaner than solvent-based types.
(Find out How to Prepare for Chemical Spills in the Workplace)
Steps to Eliminating Chemical Hazards
Eliminating hazardous chemicals and replacing them with new substances isn't something that can be done overnight. It will take months and a commitment to doing it right.
Here is a condensed outline of the substitution process.
1. Perform a Hazard Assessment
First, you must assess the current risk-to-reward ratio of your existing chemicals. Is there a significant risk involved in using, storing, or disposing of them? Remember to account for your entire inventory and consider the chemical’s entire life cycle. It might be safe to use now, but its stability might change in the future.
You must also determine if your chemical products are considered toxic or have any industry regulations. Are these natural and legal restrictions holding back your operations?
2. Identify Potential Alternatives
Identifying potential alternatives may require a long process of trial and error. You can make this shorter by answering some questions right off the bat. Will the replacement chemical meet your technical needs? Is it compatible with your current work procedures, equipment, and overall building layout? How will you store and dispose of it?
3. Compare and Contrast
After performing your hazard assessment, you should be able to weigh the pros and cons of each option. How will the new chemical impact your operations? How much of the chemical will you need? Will you have to provide additional PPE?
4. Consult Your Employees
The employees who handle chemicals daily have the most to gain from switching to safer alternatives. Consult each person and have them compare the performance of each option. Which one is better in their experience? The data might suggest Option A is better, but employee testimonials can tell a different story.
5. Introduce and Assess
You may also have to update training protocols and strengthen your supervision efforts if you decide to introduce the substitute chemical. Keep a close eye on the level of contaminants in the air during the transition. Get employee feedback and assess the change after several weeks of gathering information.
Removing Hazardous Chemicals One Step at a Time
We have become far too reliant on hazardous chemicals. They're found in our homes, our vehicles, and in our workplaces. Fortunately, you can take steps to reduce chemical risks at work. Take an inventory of all dangerous chemical products on site – with any luck, you'll be able to find a suitable and safer alternative.