What Counts as a Hazardous Substance
The forms hazardous substances take at work, from labelled chemicals to dusts and fumes that nobody bought.
8 min
Activities: 0 of 2
More than chemicals in bottles
When people hear "hazardous substance", they usually think of a chemical in a drum with a warning label. That is part of the picture. But many substances that harm health at work never come in a container. They are made by the work itself.
In this course, a hazardous substance is any substance that can harm a person's health when it is used, made or released at work. In the United Kingdom, the law that controls them is the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH). Many other countries have similar rules with different names. The ideas in this course apply wherever you work.
Forms a hazardous substance can take
Cleaning chemicals, solvents, acids, paints, oils and fuels. They can splash on skin or eyes, or give off vapour.
Two workplace examples
Example 1: the bakery. A bakery uses cleaning chemicals with labels. The team knows these are hazardous. But the biggest health risk in the bakery is flour dust. Breathing flour dust over time can cause occupational asthma. Flour has no warning label in the store, so it is easy to forget.
Example 2: the maintenance workshop. A workshop has a cupboard of labelled oils and solvents. It also has a welding bay and a grinder for stone. The welding fume and the stone dust are hazardous substances made by the work. Both must be included when the workshop checks its risks.
Which of these is a hazardous substance even though it has no label?
Name the form
Match each example to the form of substance.
- Smoke-like cloud from welding
- Fine powder from sanding wood
- Smell from wet paint
- Droplets from a spray gun