Australia's Science Forum

Hi guys,
Like many others I was unaware of the GHS labelling compliance stuff. I work 16 hours a week in a high school of about 500 students. So if I am printing my labels off of Chemwatch for things like dropper bottles and it doesn't have a pictogram that makes it non-compliant? Sorry for the lack of knowledge no one in my school seems to know a thing about it

Droppers bottle are so much smaller, that the chemwatch co, do not see the need to pictogram's, it really does depend on the strength of the solution.

Chemwatch does use the pictograms on the labels for solutions in dropper bottles that need it.

Rae is right. Seems like they do include the pictogram where they think it is needed - it's all the other information they try to cram on that is the problem. Make sure you are selecting the GHS compliant label on Chemwatch, though.

Jennag , I feel your frustration and it is why I am leaving Dropper bottles to last .....kind of hoping there will be a last minute moment of reality where WHS and the DoE actually get their S..t together and realize that we can't realistically produce a 25ml dropper bottle that is WHS compliant ......Oh and get Chemwatch on board too , so we can print the bloody labels ......Or....some other alternative that will let us get on with our job .

OK regarding Chemwatch label making . The default labels that Chemwatch generate are not the be all and end all .

"DGen label maker" on Chemwatch is well worth playing with . You can customize a label yourself . You can make it as big or small as you want . you can make multiple of them if you want ( rows and columns ) . You can include or exclude whatever you like .I have made several User defined Labels ...that's what I now use , as I found none of the Chemwatch ones workd for me

Oh dear - please do not leave labeling until last! We have nearly 3,000 dropper bottles here and we made it a project to wash them refill them and relabel them with GHS labels - it took us weeks! even to relabel bottles.. think about it .
Say you have a tray of 16 dropper bottles work out the time it is going to take you to:
remove old label
design and print new label
put dot on it
stick new label on

IF it took only 1 minute per bottle then there goes 16 minutes per tray,
BUT it is going to take a lot longer than that... mmm 5 mins per bottle = 80 minutes.....

The naughty students that had lunch time detention , had clean empty dropper bottles, they had to cut, the labels and put the dots on, put it on the empty dropper bottle. All we had to do , was refill them. And wash another lot ready for next time. Took us ages but it did help.

I heard RiskAssess are working on a GHS labelling system; they hope to have ready by mid-year.

Having been to the recent safety course, Phillip Crisp's advice is that any chemical you have "decanted or transferred", including reagent bottles and droppers, has to have at minimum 1. the name, 2. a signal word if applicable (ie DANGER or WARNING), and 3. hazard statements or at the least hazard pictogram(s). So you can get away with dropper bottles that have only the name, signal word, and a pictogram sticker. But better to have more information if you can fit it on larger bottles.

He also said that Chemwatch's labels are not compliant with guidelines for font size, their fonts are often too small (note this is not law but a guideline). They try to cram everything on to small labels but this is not necessary and can indeed get in the way.

Chemwatch labels - if the right hand side has too much information on it, then I print that part up separately and put it on the BACK of the dropper bottle, leaving the front label clearer with larger font.

You can also edit the Chemwatch labels to have a limit of statement sentences if you have labels with heaps of lines.

I remember at one Chemwatch 'training day', the speaker said you can have simple label on the droppers and then on the dropper tray, have the label with the complete information on it. I'm not sure if it's still ok to do this....??

Yes it is

I just thought I would do one chemical today to get started on the GHS labelling.
Logged into chemwatch and got 'sodium hydroxide', and the labels are not the GHS ones. They are the old system ones. The pictogram is the old one.
So I checked copper sulfate, knowing that the pictogram should be the dying fish one, but its just the black and white striped Misc one.
Help?
Am I searching in the wrong place?

yea i am a goose, found it - all good.

I expect this behaviour of my brain on a monday - or friday LOL

happy you figured it out!
now you can work on D-Gen, so you can make your own size labels with the info you would like/need.

maybe next week...LOL
I think my labels would say
"dont drink it, sniff it or put it on your skin"

You decide what info you want on your label and chemwatch imports it off the SDS for you.
you dont have to type the info yourself.
I hope you understand.

Riskassess labels are out - YAY - happy dance

Hip, hip hooray!!

See you later Chemwatch!!!!