Are you aware of health hazards while keeping the chemicals around and related incidents if not properly cared? Well, you should be. Because as a precautionary measure, many organizations dealing with chemicals in manufacturing, retailing and trading concern, and also the schools and universities with the chemical laboratories should and must be complying to the local and international standards of precautionary measures to handle with care the chemicals they own.

On the contrary, if you would not, the International agencies for chemicals safety would intervene charging you with the legal fines and punishments. So a simple guideline for preparation of chemical inventory list would help you in many ways, avoiding health hazards for people physically dealing with chemicals, securing employee safety, and more of that enabling you complying with safety standards while avoiding the legal repercussions.

Chemical Inventory List Format

So what does really include in the chemical inventory list? You can start with having a clean white and blank paper or a spreadsheet if you are using a personal computer. Write your organization name in the center of the sheet in a bold and legible manner followed by the purpose (the chemical inventory list). Make some top margin headings on either side for mentioning the building name, department name, floor number, Phone number to mention some important ones. Now, dram some six to seven columns neatly.

On top of every column, make headings in order of “Chemical name, Abbreviations your organization uses for naming chemicals, Quantity of chemicals stored, Chemical abstract Number (CAS #), Compatibility Group, Chemical Nature, Health Hazards, and Prevention/ Cure”. Ofcourse, before that, you should be having a name written on a label attached to the type of chemicals in the jar or bottle and a title name given to each rack accommodating the chemical bottles, to track it with the paper or spreadsheet (the chemical inventory list).

Using Chemical Inventory List Templates

The major step towards making an effective chemical inventory list is the grouping of similar chemicals so that when you write them on the sheet, it shall be clustered together on the basis of almost similar properties and corrosive actions and remedy/cure if got in contact. Some other important pieces of information that can be included in the sheet are “Principal Investigator (the person responsible for handling a particular chemical), Chemical Description (the scientific name, nomenclature name, generic name), Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number (as discussed earlier), Physical state of substance in collector (liquid, gas), Number of containers, Container size, Unit of measure, Name of the building, Lab, and Chemical Researcher, Storage Location, Container Type, Vendor Information, Vendor Number, Receipt Date, Expiration Date, Chemical Formula, Molecular Weight, Comments.

Doing so would help the organization in many ways especially saving lives and times of workers, researchers, handlers, and maintainers. Maintaining a chemical inventory list is worth it because organizations can achieve better productivity while achieving the success in the targets for owning chemicals, hence better monetary and non-monetary rewards.