Health & Safety Resources Site
Engineering Physics and CEDT

Material Safety Data Sheets

According to RMM 501, lab supervisors must,

"provide current Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for all hazardous materials used in the workplace."

The supervisor must also,

"maintain an inventory of all hazardous materials used or stored in the workplace using the McMaster web based inventory system. Written inventory records must be maintained in the workplace where the University system is not available."

Therefore all laboratories must maintain an inventory of all chemicals present in the lab.

Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) provide technical information about a given chemical. The MSDSs include properties of the chemical, permissible exposure levels, storage recommendations, instructions for dealing with exposure or spills, and more.

Whereas historically each lab has had to maintain a catalogue of MSDS sheets, apparently it is now sufficient to have access to MSDS sheets via a local computer.

MSDS files must be updated every three years. (Not sure about the computer inventory guidelines for updating inventory.)

You can download MSDS files here.