What does Canada’s delay of GHS mean for you?

Representatives of Canada Health and OSHA will be at Product Stewardship 2017 to update participants on the status of implementation and enforcement of GHS.

Denese Deeds, senior consultant at Industrial Health & Safety Consultants, moderates this annual panel. This year, she expects conversation around Canada’s decision to delay GHS implementation after changing a requirement so that companies can list percent ranges of hazardous chemicals in their products rather than exact formulations.

Another potential discussion is about OSHA’s approach to companies to warnings about carcinogenicity. “In the past OSHA required companies to classify products in accordance with IRAC and NTP, but they dropped that as a mandatory requirement and left it up to manufacturers and importers to do a hazard assessment,” says Deeds. “It turns out that a lot of companies have decided to drop their cancer classifications because they don’t agree with IRAC and NTP.

Deeds says product stewards could learn about OSHA’s guidance about weighting evidence in assessments and glean some insight into the agency’s position.

“This session is an opportunity to hear directly from the people making interpretive decisions within the context of rulemaking and to have their questions answered,” says Deeds. “If you have a burning issue, it’s an opportunity to ask questions.”