Source: Radio New Zealand
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden will change hazardous substance regulations for research laboratories, saying it will save the industry billions.
The labs would be able to develop their own risk management plans, a new code of practice would be developed, and some specific rules were being tweaked.
One researcher said the changes would make it much easier and cheaper for the sector, which he thought would support the new code of practice.
When the government changed the regulations for hazardous substances in 2017, rules for research labs – which had previously been separate – were lumped in with those for industrial labs including petrol refineries, food processors, and commercial cleaning and pesticide producers.
Van Velden told RNZ carve-outs for researchers were intended to be developed, but that never happened and some of the regulations were not well suited.
“It’s pretty clear there’s a big difference between people who have huge amounts of hazardous goods for … sale and production of goods versus people that have a lot of smaller portions of hazardous goods for research,” she said.
Victoria University of Wellington School of Chemical and Physical Sciences senior lecturer Mathew Anker said it was not that the rules for dangerous chemicals were being softened, but suited to the environment.
Victoria University of Wellington School of Chemical and Physical Sciences senior lecturer Mathew Anker. Supplied / Victoria University
For instance, the rules for handling ammonia made sense when using industrial quantities to treat milk.
“In a research lab we have 1000 chemicals, we don’t have 1000 sensors. Half the sensors we’d have to put in don’t exist … on top of that it’s at such a low volume that it won’t happen.
“We have huge amounts of ventilation, we have fume cupboards that suck away all those fumes … but that isn’t taken into account in the regulations.”
A Cabinet paper showed many research labs were now non-compliant with the rules because they were built under the previous requirements.
“The costs to rebuild these laboratories to comply would be extreme …. and overly restrictive, and may not improve safety,” the paper said.
Van Velden pointed to estimates from Universities New Zealand suggesting it would have cost between $1.5 billion and $3b to make the labs compliant if there was no change.
She said current rules specified that labs must be on the ground floor, but at a university it made more sense to have them on a higher floor so people could escape in case of a fire.
The regulator, WorkSafe, would work with the industry to develop a new Approved Code of Practice (ACOP), she said, clearly setting out obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act to solve problems like that.
“Industry experts as well as WorkSafe will be creating this tailored compliance pathway – it’s not going to be created by a minister that doesn’t have scientific background,” she said.
Cabinet on 2 December had also agreed to change some specific regulations:
- Research labs would be able to manage handling, packaging and storage of hazardous substances through a risk management plan
- Storage sites located nearby, which currently could face more stringent rules, would have the same regulations as labs
- Researchers, who already had higher levels of training, would not need separate certification to handle hazardous substances
- Lab managers would no longer need to be on site at all times, instead only required to be available to provide oversight
- Instead of needing knowledge of all hazardous substances used, managers would only need knowledge of safety risks
Dr Anker said the research sector had been lobbying the government for eight years trying to get fit-for-purpose rules in place. 123RF
Dr Anker said research labs were operating safely, but compliance under the old rules was another question altogether.
For example, the university had spent more than three years and more than $1 million to move a device for purifying solvents without using heat or electricity because the regulations demanded it.
As a result, students now needed to walk through the hallways carrying solvent in glassware rather than simply moving around the lab.
“Two buildings across and three floors down, and that piece of equipment was being used 10, 20, 30 times a day … but we now have our students traipsing across two buildings and down the three floors to collect their very, very small volumes of solvent.”
WorkSafe had intervened, despite Fire and Emergency agreeing with the university about the safest way to do things, he said.
“The industry experts using the chemicals and the experts at putting the fires out from the chemicals agreed with each other, but the regulator disagreed with us.”
He said the research sector had been lobbying the government for eight years trying to get fit-for-purpose rules in place, and the result was a return to a pragmatic, risk-based approach.
He was confident creating their own risk management plans would be unlikely to lead to corner-cutting.
“The onus for responsibility for health and safety is on that person that’s trying to cut around the rules. Now, most people are not going to stick their neck out and say ‘I’m going to do something incredibly unsafe, just because I want to’,” he said.
“Second of all, when the lab managers build these risk assessments and all the rest of it, it has to go through a very thorough process.”
Such risk plans were already used in universities around the country, he said.
WSP Research national manager for research Wendy Turvey in a statement said the codes of practice and other tools agreed on were a pragmatic solution and would provide clearer settings for risk management while recognising the realities of research environments.
“WSP has had input through the working groups as the regulations were shaped, and we’re pleased with the final outcome. Just as importantly, the process has been strongly collaborative – involving MBIE, universities, WorkSafe, [public] research organisations and other independent research organisations and companies.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
