Safety Data Sheets (SDS) Register

Organising Safety Data Sheets is boring and time consuming. 

Not doing this results in fines for each and every breach. Which can lead to $250,000+ in fines and penalties, straight off the bottom line.

It's easy to get wrong.

Many businesses do this wrong, and they don’t know until they're in the middle of a surprise inspection.

Safety Data Sheets Register is the framework to fulfil your responsibility for creating and maintaining your own SDS Register and can be done in a single afternoon.

Work Health and Safety legislation is complicated and scary.

Unless you read it all, you don’t even know how big it is. It’s easy to give up and hope nothing happens. But if you don’t comply, you run the risk of workers being injured or killed, the risk of big fines from your State Regulator, or the risk of even being shut down.

Real Life Story from the Aussie Outback.

While working at a roadhouse in outback Australia, the owner mentioned to me that NT WorkSafe visited them a month before I arrived. He told me this story - the Inspectors turned up out of the blue one day and demanded to be escorted around the workplace immediately. They were asking questions he didn't have the answers to, they kept writing things down on their notepads and commenting on things they were seeing. 

The owner felt victimised and attacked. He’d spent 12 years building the business up. Turns out he hadn’t considered Work Health and Safety legislation. The NT WorkSafe Inspectors wrote up three Improvement Notices on his business. The 3 Improvement Notices detailed 10 mandatory Directions. The owner was required to maintain a Register of substances and source up-to-date Safety Data Sheets for all Hazardous Substances and Dangerous Goods. Used across the entire business!

He personally faced $10,920 in fines ($3640 per Improvement Notice) if this was not rectified within the 5 days following our discussion. And prepare for court to defend a further $250,000 penalty.

This business was also about to go on the market. Having open notices with NT WorkSafe would have prevented any sale, whatsoever.

This is why I created Safety Data Sheets Register. I needed a tool that the business could use in its everyday operations to meet its Work Health and Safety obligations for Safety Data Sheets. I couldn't find anything on the market to do just this job, and that's pretty surprising because my google-fu is strong. So I made a solution for the mandated requirement to create, keep, and share a business Safety Data Sheets Register. Plus I threw in the bonus of recording Substance Risk Assessments, which by the way is also a mandatory. Safety Data Sheets Register also serves as a Hazardous Substances Register. And the icing on the cake with this Safety Data Sheets Register is Calendar Reminders - never have out-of-date SDS again!

Together with the business owner, I used Safety Data Sheets Register to successfully comply with the NT WorkSafe Improvement Notice for developing and maintaining a register of hazardous chemicals and Safety Data Sheets, without incurring any fine.

Here's what you get.

• Fully formatted Safety Data Sheets Register made in Google Sheets that complies with the requirements of the National Uniform Legislation for Work Health and Safety - you don’t have to create your own and wonder whether it’s going to do the job

• Safety Data Sheets Register is always available online and up to date, ready for you and your staff to review

• Safety Data Sheets Register links to each and every Safety Data Sheet that you upload - right inside the entry for each substance, makes it easy to find what you’re looking for

• Data entry form fully integrated, so it’s simple to add your new chemicals, or update SDS when you get a new one

• Easily add SDS Due Date calendar reminders for your substance SDS - always know a month in advance when you need to get an update from your supplier because your SDS is coming up to 5 years old

• Print the Safety Data Sheets Register to put at the front of your hard-copy SDS Folder - print the full Register, or print only for the storage area

• Status field (In Use/Not In Use) filters for relevant substances, and keeps your records of use tidy and printable

• Used For field - make it easy to prove you’re using the substance as it is intended, so you can complete Simple and Obvious Risk Assessments

• Record substance Hazard Classifications according to both classification systems - the Globally Harmonised System (GHS) and the Australian Dangerous Goods (ADG) Code - so you can stay compliant and aware of risk

• Record whether you’ve completed your Risk Assessment (plus the type of Risk Assessment and the resulting Risk Level) on the substance, and upload the Risk Assessment file if required

• Monitor your substances on the Dashboard - check how many substances you have, check how many are in use, check how many Dangerous Goods/Hazardous Substances you’re storing and using, check whether you’ve got non-compliant SDS (due date passed, non-Australian supplier)

What happens if you don't do anything?

Improvement Notices, if not rectified within the required timeframe, are considered ‘in breach’ and subject to an Infringement Notice and fine of $3,640 each in the Northern Territory. Additionally, failure to comply with an Improvement Notice carries a penalty of up to $50,000 for an individual or up to $250,000 for a body corporate. Fines and penalties of similar magnitude are imposed in all other Australian jurisdictions.

Could you make your own Safety Data Sheets Register?

For sure! You can run a Google Search and wade through the results for a spreadsheet template that looks like it will do the job, or you could create your Safety Data Sheets Register from scratch if you can find the right guide from your Regulator's website. But you'll have to do a lot of manual setup and it will be quite a few more steps to add links to your files. You'll need to organise all these files in folders so you can find them again for linking into your Register entries. You'll have to set up your sheet for printing so it is formatted nicely for your hard copy SDS folder. You'll also have to figure out how to format and print your Hazardous Substances Register. Don't forget the reminders! How will you remember to get a new SDS in 2.5 years? Maybe adding a manual reminder for one substance could be manageable, but what happens when you have 20, or 50, or more substances?

My story.

I’m an Industrial Chemist with a deep love for solving problems. I have written many Safety Data Sheets in the past. I’ve been there when businesses struggle with the Hazardous Substances and Dangerous Goods legislation requirements. It’s not easy to understand. I’ve helped small businesses get out of a lot of trouble with the authorities without breaking the bank. And instituted new systems and practices overnight that prevented further misery.

Roadmap.

• Upgrade path to more elegant, easier to use data entry form with email notifications

• Integrations with Zapier, PabblyConnect, Integromat (upon request)

• Automatic email reminders 

• HazSub Inspections Emergency Kit - checklist for what to do when you’re in the middle of an inspection

• Dangerous Goods Manifest

• Done With You option

• Done For You option