Chemical Management

1. Building and maintaining a chemical register

The principal or their delegate must:

• prepare and maintain a chemical register to document effective management of all dangerous goods and hazardous substances
• list all identified dangerous goods or hazardous substances in the school in the register and have their risk assessed by the principal or their delegate
• update the school’s chemical register when new dangerous goods or hazardous substances are obtained
• ensure that the school’s chemical register is readily accessible by school staff who may be exposed to a hazardous substance at the workplace.

Schools can decide if products that are not dangerous goods or hazardous substances are included in the register but there is no legislated or departmental requirement to do so.

Refer to Chapter 2 for more details on identifying dangerous goods and hazardous substances and Chapter 3 for more details on assessing risk.

Schools have free access to Chemwatch GoldFFX (staff login required) to build and maintain their electronic chemical register and assess the risk of products or chemicals in the register. Refer to the Resources tab for links to training resources for the platform.

When adding dangerous goods or hazardous substances to the school’s chemical register in Chemwatch, it is recommended that only the vendor or Chemwatch entry is used. These are identified by an orange or blue dot next to the product name. Selecting these products ensures data from the safety data sheet (SDS) is available to populate a mini SDS, generate a label, and provide risk and hazard information.

Schools can use an equivalent chemical register, such as the department’s previous Excel template, but are strongly recommended to use Chemwatch GoldFFX. Hands-on support with the transfer of school chemical registers on to the Chemwatch GoldFFX system can be accessed through the Statewide OHS Services Team and the OHS Advisory Service.

Note: Chemwatch training material refers to chemical registers as a manifest. This policy refers to a chemical register throughout, unless it is relating to manifest quantities. Guidance sheet 1: Chemical storage (DOCX) includes a table with dangerous goods amounts, that when reached, will require a chemical manifest to be generated.