Office of Security, Safety and Risk Management

Material Safety Data Sheets

MSDSs are a very important aspect of both Hazard Communication and Laboratory Standards. MSDSs are required to provide the employee with the information he/she needs to know about the hazards of materials being handled.

The responsibility of the employer is to make these sheets available to the employee. The employer must also provide training so the employee can understand these MSDSs. The employee must take responsibility for reading these MSDSs if the intent of the Hazard Communication and Laboratory Standards is to be accomplished. The MSDSs are often difficult to read and understand. The intent of this training is to make the MSDSs understandable.

Throughout this training, two MSDSs will be available to you as examples. The MSDS of methylene chloride was obtained from the University of Utah's database and will be identified as methylene chloride MSDS The other MSDS contains information about bromine and was obtained from the Fisher Scientific database. It will be identified as bromine MSDS. As you advance through these pages of training you can click on the above IDs to see actual examples of the section described.

MSDSs do not have a standard format. Although the Federal government requires MSDSs to contain the following information, the producer of the hazardous material may present this information in their own format.

Here is a list of information found on most MSDSs: