Dangerous Goods Risk Management

Dangerous Goods Risk Management

Latest Newsletter From Noel Arnold

From pumping petrol, to using aerosol air fresheners, dangerous goods (DG) are part of our every day life, but do we really understand how dangerous they are?

DG are substances or articles that, because of hazardous chemical or physical properties, may pose a significant risk to people, property or the environment due to the result of a single incident. Some DG can react and burn violently, explode and/or emit toxic fumes and gases if they are mixed together, spilt or involved in fire.

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DG can cause injury, death or serious damage, and consequently it is important that they are stored and handled in a safe manner.

High Risk Sites
Organisations that store and handle DG such as fuel (e.g. LPG, petrol and diesel) or other chemicals in depots may be at a high risk of significant breaches of their legislative requirements, not to mention putting their employees, contractors, the public or the environment at unnecessary risk of injury, illness or contamination.

Typically, fuels are stored for purposes such as refuelling plant and equipment (e.g. vehicles, tractor mowers, brush cutters, generators or fire pumps). Hazardous activities may involve decanting from tanks or drums into vehicles or smaller containers to be used in the field, or mixing of constituents such as two stroke oil and fuel. This may sound innocuous enough, but issues such as control of the build-up of static electricity and the suitability of the equipment used for decanting should be critically appraised before undertaking any decanting tasks. Failure to do so could result in fire, serious injury or even death.