Health, Safety and Environment - International Labour Organization

Manual 5:PESTICIDES AND HEALTH,SAFETY & THE ENVIRONMENTMaterialSafety DataSheets(MSDS)Labels only give you basic health and safety information, they are notstandardised, and crucial HS&E information may be missing. Morecomprehensive information on a formulated pesticide product can beobtained from a (product) material safety data sheet (MSDS) provided bythe manufacturer directly, or through the local supplier or importer of thechemical.A Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) is a document that containsinformation on the potential health and environmental effects of exposureand how to work in the safest manner with the chemical product. TheMSDS contains much more information than the label and is prepared andprovided by the pesticide manufacturer/supplier.The main categories of information in an MSDS include:1. Product information: trade/brand name, manufacturer/suppliersnames and addresses, and emergency phone numbers2. Hazardous ingredients active ingredient(s) etc by chemical name(s)3. Physical Data4. Fire or Explosion Data5. Reactivity Data: information on the chemical instability of the productand substances it may react with6. Toxicological Properties: health and environmental effects7. Preventative/Control Measures8. First Aid Measures9. Preparation Information: who is responsible for preparation and dateof preparation of the MSDSMSDS are not automatically supplied with the formulated product. You willhave to ask for them, often through your employer, who in turn can obtainthem – free of charge – from the manufacturer, importer or supplier of theproduct. It is important to ask your employer for copies of MSDS toestablish the principle that you have the right to receive them. In somecountries, the law guarantees the right of workers to have access to –sometimes to even directly receive from companies – manufacturers’MSDS.Organisations like the World Health Organisation (WHO), for example, alsoproduce ‘pesticide safety data sheets’, but it is important to distinguishthem from manufacturers’ MSDS which provide information on specific,formulated products. WHO-type ‘data sheets’ can be very useful butusually give general information on active ingredients and not on specificproducts, and should really be considered under literature/databaseinformation.217 Health, Safety and EnvironmentA Series of Trade Union EducationManuals for Agricultural Workers