Queensland and most other Australian jurisdictions now require manufacturers, importers and suppliers of hazardous workplace chemicals to classify and label chemicals in accordance with the Globally Harmonised System (GHS) of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals.

Some things you need to know about the GHS after the amendment of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 on 9 December last year:

• If a person is an end user of a hazardous chemical they are not required to relabel existing chemicals in their workplace with GHS compliant labels, if they were supplied to the workplace before 1 January 2017.
• It’s not necessary to include duplicate information on a label where it is required by other labelling laws. For example, if ‘Wear face protection’ and ‘Wear gloves and face protection’ are specified, then only the latter statement should appear on the label, because it relates to the more stringent protective measures.
• There is an exemption to work health and safety (WHS) labelling requirements from applying to veterinary chemicals that are listed in Schedule 4 and 8 of the Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons. This exemption applies to the chemicals in a form intended for direct administration to animals for therapeutic purposes because they are similar to therapeutic goods which are exempt from WHS labelling requirements.

Safe disposal of empty farming containers not only provides more room in your storage facilities, but also encourages the proper disposal of residue and empty containers.

DrumMUSTER is an easy, environmentally-friendly way to dispose of empty metal or plastic 1–205 litre chemical containers. The chemicals that were in them must still be identified by the label and they should be triple-rinsed before collection. Participating manufacturers can be identified by the DrumMUSTER logo on the chemical label, embossed into the container wall or applied as a sticker to the container. Containers not displaying this logo will not be accepted into the program.

Further information

For more information about labelling chemicals visit worksafe.qld.gov.au and about DrumMUSTER visit drummuster.org.au.