This class is never a bad idea. Usually free of charge.
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Excellent. People think they know first aid, and many do, but go take an actual first aid course. 8hrs, written and performance tests. We had to take it as foster parents and I realized I’d been cruising on what I learned in high school health class and saw on TV.
It’s important.
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A person can bleed out in as little as 90 seconds. Paramedics are 5 minutes away in the best of cases usually.
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Everyone should go outside with a fire extinguisher and pull the trigger once. At former chemical plant employer, the fire marshal would come out and do demos for us, usually on the same day or week as our fire drill. Just go somewhere safe and light a pot of ethanol or something (not you California, sorry) and practice P.A.S.S (pull aim squeeze sweep). Here’s an old fire safety SOP shell I’d copy and paste from. The only thing it’s missing is a facility map with the designated meet up spot for headcount.
It’s hard to pull the trigger when you have no idea what’s going to happen next, muscle memory is key here as someone previously stated in this or another thread.
EDU008_-_Fire_safety_and_procedure_F4200.pdf (169.9 KB)
Edit: fun signs
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I’d be willing to add hive mind to our saftey game, I can state for sure it is a bit rough around the edges and saftey can and should always be improved on…
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Trying to remember what’s even in the binder is what made me realize…
Back when I worked on a gravel crusher it was always a “mine” so MSHA training was required plus first aid,
The class was usually 2 8 hour days of the dangers involved, from electrical to heavy equipment.
I feel like there could be something similar with the lab
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Did they ever let y’all watch the ”Shake hands with danger” video?
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Oh yeah! With 3 finger joe!
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I would love to be a guneia pig! I have a very small facility (~1500 sq ft). The whole building is basically a 3 bay cinderblock garage that I converted to food grade. One bay is my lab, the other 2 bays (separated by block wall from the lab) is my production facility. I have multiple extinguishers and fire blankets in both areas. I have an eye wash station in my lab, numerous respirators both half face and full face as well as goggles, and a 4ft exhaust fan that we run with the bay door open anytime we are operating anything in the lab. All equipment is closed loop and is vented outside of the building when needed. We have standard SOPs that we follow without deviance that ensure operator safety, but I do not have an “OH SHIT” SOP for if something were to catch on fire. I always assumed I’d grab the fire blanket first, and if that didn’t cut it, then cover the entire area in that nasty powder from the extinguisher! I would love to hear input from others on exactly what they would do if a fire were to break out in their lab. I would assume most fires that we will encounter would be an electrically induced solvent fire.
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This is so important! We had multiple types of fire extinguishers at our plant and were all trained, from receptionist to custodian and every salesperson, accountant, production employee and operator took turns with these trainings. Everyone’s first instinct is to spray the extinguisher at the top of the fire or straight ahead which is ineffective. Great addition to the conversation. Thank you!
Also, once you practice, you might need to have your extinguisher refilled. Don’t do all this work and then hang up an empty extinguisher.
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We have a candidate and a second! Let’s start at the beginning. Here is a very, very basic template to get us going.
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CO2 fire extinguisher will leave no damage to your precious equipment and no powdery mess to clean up!!
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Time to invest in several of those! I really appreciate the suggestion.
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Could you give me an example of what would be put under the Consultation subsection? I have completed all other areas, and I would like to post what I have for scrutiny but I did not want to leave it unfinished.
Edit: I assumed it meant having your processes validated by 3rd party individuals. I have had SO many people into my facility in order to audit our setup and processes. My papaw used to make RDX explosive back in the day and I felt that he had a pretty good bead on safety coming from facilities as such. Anyways, here is what I came up with for Safety Policies. I didn’t want to get too awful wordy but I feel that I have covered most of my bases. I would love feedback from individuals that are more knowledgeable in this area.
MMHC Safety Policy Statement.pdf (42.8 KB)
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Don’t forget to actually got out in the parking lot and put stuff out with one.
They are not as effective as the chemical extinguishers…but if they’ve got what it takes, then the aftermath is not nearly as unpleasant.
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We will definitely experiment! Thankfully, our bulk solvent is stored in a shipping container outside of the facility, and we only use <20L of solvent at a time. I know that is surely more than enough for a nasty mess, however. I couldn’t imagine running thru 1500L/hr like the Shyne facility. I just don’t understand why their fire suppression system failed! They took the time to implement it and explain it in their promo video, but it looks like the firefighters still had to wrestle it!
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I am so proud of you. That is really, really great work. I can tell that you have thought about it. I would think the next step is to print this for all employees and do a walk around to verify that reflects the situation on the ground.
I encourage people to use your verbiage keeping in mind that this is not a book report. The printed copy is there to define and reflect the actual practices which are drilled and refined continually.
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I just want to thank YOU, Cat! For starting this thread, for encourging all of us to seriously consider these things, and for giving resources to promote thought on the subject. Everyone deep down thinks that it won’t happen to me, but the Shyne labs incident has definitely been a wake-up call for me. I am proud of where our processes and facility is currently at in development. When we started, I definitely resembled the remarks about garage wannabe chemists that were out of their element, and I am so thankful that we were able to scrounge enough together to elevate our equipment, processes, and knowledge to a level that we deem safe without serious injury or worse. However, we all know that work is never “finished”. I encourage other members that have a keen eye for safety both in practice and in theory to post their thoughts, documents, etc here in order to give myself and others insight into how they set up their safety protocols.
It would be really sweet if we could have examples to put together into a formal safety plan that companies can use as a guidance when they want to implement those procedures in their organization. I definitely feel that would fall right in line with the mission that @Future set out for when he open sourced his pesticide remediation SOP. I totally feel that free SOPs, guidance, and documents relating to lab safety would be huge to add to the arsenal of resources that Future4200 has to offer this industry!
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Hi everyone!
Excited to contribute to the conversation around safety.
Some initial thoughts after reading this thread…
- While in general, having a close relationship with your local fire department is a great idea. One should remember, that for a facility of this size (shyne) you should keep urban search and rescue and HAZWOPER just as close.
This applies to a lot of us here. Scale and level of hazard are the two general axises although, if you read the Process Safety Management federal regulations you can get an idea of some of the others. At the level of shyne, they likely qualify on scale alone. But some of us here use pyrophoric substances and other dangers and could qualify on hazard.
This leads well into a second, more important, point.
- OSHA’s process safety management standards and site-specific monitoring program. These exists for highly hazardous materials and industries that handle them. Pretty soon here, OSHA is gonna catch notice and we will have had enough accidents under their scrutiny to qualify for these programs. We’re gonna be screwed if our industry ever does qualify for these. Things like the hydrocarbons we already use are on that list at the quantity of 10,000 pounds or more. But the worst thing could be getting cannabinoids added to that list in any quantity.
If the idea of making an IIPP scares you, then this program should make you wet your pants. Play time is over, your employees will be getting lung x-rays to ensure their PPE fits correctly, environmental sampling that rivals the medical industry, and worse - people could be restricted to operate in zones that have HAZWOPER public units (Employers covered under this standard may also be subject to the hazardous waste and emergency response provisions contained in 29 CFR 1910.120(a), (p) and (q)). We can get around that by having an employee obtain the 40-hour HAZWOPER course or having a private HAZWOP response unit on standby. Either way, this would change the landscape of our industry.
We should be proactive as an industry to take safety seriously, so that this industry can remain accessible. Raising the level of entry to that of pharmaceutical or comparable industries won’t help anyone reading this right now.
But we do need to take safety seriously.
- While PPE is great, it is the actual worst safety control. Something as simple as an administrative control (the second worst) which is basically just safety rules, is considered to be a more effective safety control.
The administrative control could be as benign don’t jump off that cliff or maybe don’t run with scissors. It would be better to follow those rules, than to put a parachute near every cliff - or perhaps to require a butcher’s smock purchase with every scissor.
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Don’t get complacent because of your controls. The Shyne facility definitely had the next best control from admin, which is engineering. Things like a safe-stop blade or a fire control valve, are engineering controls which do a better job of isolating the employee from the danger than the previous controls. But as many people know, they can fail as well. Our industry bears a heavy reliance on fixed gas detection systems, which are not perfect. Nothing is.
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It is the synergy of all these systems in conjunction, with proactive safety at every level of the organization, which protects people.
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Our IIPP.
This is not a final product.
This is a guide or template, that we give to California small businesses IN CONJUNCTION with our consulting services. We’ve added some exposition to try and help people create their own final product.
It is NOT a safety plan, but hopefully it helps some of you improve safety at your lab. At the very least, I hope it is helpful as you move through your own safety documentation.
This document has taken us many hours to compile, but it is important to share it now to maybe even save a life. All we ask is, please do not remove our logo from the header or our company name from the footer, if you choose to use this. We hope this encourages many of you to integrate what you find here with the information that pertains to your own unique lab.
CA_IIPP_AJCC_template_22.pdf (1.8 MB)
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Great contribution to the conversation. Thank you for the documentation and I hope that people lean in to what you are offering on this thread.
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Excellent addition! I learned a few things for sure. Do you offer consult outside of CA? I’m in MI.
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