Is It Possible to Create NAFTA-compliant SDSs and Labels? The Outlook Certainly Looks Plausible

What’s Happening?

On 28 March 2017, Kate Sullivan, Elizabeth Dederick of knoell USA, and Christoph Schwarz from knoell attended the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication (SCHC) Spring 2017 meeting in New Orleans. They presented a poster by Jeremy Long titled, “Is It Possible to Create NAFTA-compliant SDSs and Labels? The Outlook Certainly Looks Plausible.” The poster got second place in the poster session.

The intent of this poster is to provide evidence that a NAFTA-compliant SDS and label could be authored, but there are certain requirements to satisfy Mexico’s NOM-018-STPS-2015 standard, the United States’ Hazard Communication (HazCom) 2012 standard, and Canada’s Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) 2015 standard.

How Could it Impact Me?

The ability to generate a single safety data sheet (SDS) and label for a product supplied in the United States, Canada, and Mexico could facilitate trade between the North American countries and also streamline the communication of health and safety information across borders.

Quick Summary

Canada, the United States and Mexico are committed to the implementation of Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). A key objective of the implementation of GHS is to create a system that will allow the use of a single label and SDS for each hazardous product that will comply with U.S., Canadian and Mexican requirements while strengthening health and safety protection provided to workers by ensuring more effective and consistent hazard information is available to all workers, making it safer for them to do their jobs and easier for employers to stay competitive.