12 Basic laboratory safety rules

The occupational safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports over 500,000 workers are employed in laboratories across the United States. Each of these workers looks to enter a healthy workplace where they can perform their job free of safety hazards that pose a significant risk of personal injury. Preventing laboratory accidents requires vigilance, care, and staying informed.

Laboratory safety overview

A laboratory is a building or a place equipped to carry out scientific experiments, research, measurements, and other technological tests. Labs are full of hazards, biological hazards such as food-borne diseases, infectious specimens, and blood-borne pathogens. Numerous apparatuses and substances used within a laboratory can be harmful if not taken care of appropriately and managed securely. Chemicals can introduce actual risk and wellbeing dangers to workers in clinical, academic, and industrial laboratories. If not treated with care, risky synthetic compounds can be poisonous, destructive, and irritative to the skin, eyes, organ frameworks, and other body parts. They can likewise be deadly.

Laboratory safety is a measure against laboratory accidents and to minimize the risk of injury or illness to laboratory workers by ensuring that they have the training, information, support, and equipment needed to work safely in the laboratory. In many countries, laboratory work is subject to health and safety legislation. In some cases, laboratory activities can also present environmental health risks, for example, the accidental or deliberate discharge of toxic or infective material from the laboratory into the environment. 

Basic Laboratory safety rules

1. Be sure to read all fire alarm and safety signs and follow the instructions in the event of an accident or emergency.

2. Make sure you know where your lab’s safety equipment is kept and how to properly use it including first aid kits, fire extinguishers, eyewash stations, and safety showers, etc.

3. Make sure you are aware of where your lab’s exits and fire alarms are located.

4. Always work in properly ventilated areas.

5. Laboratory safety glasses or goggles should be worn in any area where chemicals are used or stored. They should also be worn any time there is a chance of splashes or particulates entering the eye. Closed-toe shoes will be worn at all times in the laboratory. Perforated shoes or sandals are not appropriate.

6. Never use lab equipment that you are not approved or trained by your supervisor to operate.

7. No cell phone or earphone usage in the active areas of the laboratories, or during experimental operations.
8. Computers and instrumentation should be labeled to indicate whether gloves should be worn or not. Inconsistent glove use around keyboards/keypads is a source of potential contamination.

9. Avoid skin and eye contact with all chemicals.

10. Combine reagents in their appropriate order, such as adding acid to water.

11. All laboratory personnel should place emphasis on safety and chemical hygiene at all times.

Many accidents can be prevented by wearing personal protective equipment when working in the laboratory and getting the best safety equipment for your work.

For laboratory safety equipment or to know more about lab safety contact us at 09093333374, 08064338888.

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