Imagine the scene – red flashing
lights on the car behind you make you pull over. Why? You weren't speeding.
What’s the problem? At closer inspection you realize it’s not the police,
sheriff, or even a state trooper. It’s the DOT (Department of Transportation).
What do they want? They may be double checking your ladders, seeing if interior
loads are properly secured, and not obscuring the driver’s vision. Certainly
they will be checking on the chemicals you have in your vehicle and at this
point four letters will be vital - MSDS.
MSDS
Material data safety sheets are a
system for cataloging information like reactivity with fire, water, other
chemicals, chemical compounds, or chemical mixtures. They also provide
information on the products safe use and potential health hazards associated with
the product you are using. Proper clean up procedures in case of spills are
also part of these sheets. They should be present wherever these chemicals are
being used. OSHA requires MSDS sheets be made available to employees for
potentially harmful substances handled on the job.
Are You Ready?
As professional window cleaners we
deal with a wide variety of chemicals. For instance, besides whatever soaps we
use for cleaning windows we may have various acidic cleaners for hard water
stains; glide additives for our cleaning solution; and agents for removing
cement, sealers, or heavy grease deposits. Maybe we offer other services like
gutter whitening, roof cleaning or power washing. Now there are chemicals like bleach,
gutter whitening cleaners, muriatic acid, and a plethora of other agents too
numerous to list. If we use them or carry them on our work vehicles by law we
need to have a MSDS for each product. So depending on the services we offer
there could be a small novel in MSDS sheets we need to keep track of. How do we
do it efficiently?
The MSDS Binder
The most efficient way to keep track
of our MSDS sheets is to organize them into a binder and have a binder for each
work vehicle and one for the shop where we store extra chemicals. So once we
know how many binders we need the next step is to make them.
Let’s take
some time now and go through the steps needed to make your own MSDS binder –
Step 1 – to get a MSDS sheet we have a
couple options. If we are purchasing our chemical from Window Cleaning Resource
they have a downloadable MSDS on the product page of their online store.
Otherwise a simple Google search under the heading “MSDS for “and then the name
of the product we are using. Once you’ve downloaded the MSDS for each product I
recommend making a folder on your computer to hold them all. Then it’s simply a
matter of printing out a copy of each product’s MSDS for each work vehicle and
one for the shop.
Step 2 – You’ll need a 3 ring binder and 3 ring
sheet protectors (we use Avery #75530). Put each products MSDS in a sheet
protector and then put that in the 3 ring binder. We label the binder MSDS on
its spine and then Material Safety Data Sheets on the front cover.
Step 3 – Repeat step 2 until you have a
filled binder for each work vehicle and shop area where products are stored.
Better Safe Than Sorry
Once we have our binders made and in
place make sure we and all employees understand how to use them and where they
are located. Granted some of the products we use are fairly common and safe to
use. However, there are some that if used improperly can be deadly. That’s why
you should include a discussion of MSDS part of your company’s safety meeting
schedule. While we hope we never have to need the information in a MSDS it’s
simply a case of “better safe than sorry”.
For more educational topics go to Window Cleaning Institute
For more educational topics go to Window Cleaning Institute
