Equipment being relocated must move through public corridors and outside areas; equipment being repaired or disposed is being transferred to service or disposal personnel unfamiliar with your lab and its hazards. In all cases, you are responsible for protecting others from unknown contamination. Learn more in Equipment Transfer Safety Note.
Lab safety fair
Join the Homewood Researcher Safety Committee for free lab safety swag, exciting lab safety demonstrations, and free food and coffee on Thursday, April 7th from 11 AM to 1 PM in the Hodson Hall lobby.
Nominations for Dean’s Safety Award Extended
The deadline for nominating students for the 2016 Dean’s Safety Award has been extended to April 1, 2016. Recall that the award, which includes a $500 honorarium, is given to one student or student group in KSAS and WSE each for lab safety improvements that also improve science. See here for the original announcement of the award, and here for a sample application. Nominations must be made by the student’s principal investigator, academic adviser, or department chair.
Protect your eyes from high-intensity light
Protect your vision when working with UV germicidal lamps; lasers; welding and arc lamps; or other high–energy light sources. Special goggles limit the amount of light that can reach your eyes and skin. The type and amount of protection depends on the frequency, nature, and intensity of light. Learn more in Light eye protection.
Protect your face with a face shield
When a hazard involves a lot of energy or aggressive chemicals, your face may be at risk as well as your eyes. Also, Z87.1 or Z87.1+ rated eye protection may not be adequate to protect your eyes, so additional protection might be prudent. If you could injure your face in an accident, use a face shield to protect your face – learn more in High energy facial protection.
Protect your eyes from physical hazards
Physical hazards require eye protection designed for physical hazards. Always wear safety glasses or goggles when working with manual or power tools that may produce small particles (e.g., sanding, milling, cutting, hammering, scraping, etc.); working with tools that can generate droplets or a strong (>20psi) fluidstream, whether the fluid is air, water, or something else; processes producing lots of dust or other particles in the air (e.g., blowing leaves or snow from the sidewalk). Learn more in Physical hazard eye protection.
Protect your eyes from chemical hazards
Chemical hazards require eye protection specifically designed for chemical hazards. Many chemicals can cause serious damage or irritation when they get into your eyes. These include, but are not limited to, acids, caustics and solvents. When working with chemical eye hazards, wear chemical splash goggles to protect your eyes – learn more in Chemical Hazard Eye Protection.
Is your plastic gas tubing an over-inflated balloon?
Many labs use compressed gases, and often we use pressure regulators to step down the 2000-3000 psi in the cylinder to the use pressure. If the regulator can produce more than about 30 psi outlet, your plastic tubing might be in danger of rupture. Read more about how to fix this without buying a new $500 regulator in How to prevent plastic tubing rupture.
Safety and extra cost don’t go together
Many people think that safety improvements for an experiment always cost extra money. This is not true–many times, appropriate improvements avoid cost while making the research inherently safer. Read about one such case that saved the Electrical and Computer Engineering department over $10,000 (and lots of class time) in Cost reduction ECE laser teaching lab.
What eye protection do I use?
There are many different types of protective eyewear available, and each one is designed to protect against a different hazard. Having the wrong type of safety eyewear can be worse than not wearing eye protection at all. Learn about the basic types in Choosing eye protection.
This Hopkins Safety Note is the start of a series on eye protection, so look for future notes covering the different types in detail.