Control Banded Standard Operating Procedures SOPs

Cal/OSHA requires that standard operating procedures (SOPs) be established for work with any hazardous chemicals. This requirement is stated in 8 CCR §5191(Occupational Exposure to Hazardous Chemicals in Laboratories, “Laboratory Standard”) under the provisions of the Chemical Hygiene Plan.
SOPs document the laboratory-specific procedures for the safe handling, storage and disposal of hazardous chemicals.

Principal investigators and laboratory supervisors are responsible for establishing SOPs relevant to health and safety for laboratory activities under their direction that involve hazardous chemicals.

In order to alleviate the need for hundreds or thousands of chemical specific SOPs for all of the hazardous chemicals in a lab’s inventory, EH&S at UCSF has introduced the system of control banding SOPs.

Control banding is a process that matches a control measure (e.g., ventilation, engineering controls, containment, etc.) to a range or “band” of hazards and exposures. The control banding system group chemicals in a lab’s inventory according to similar physical and chemical characteristics, how the chemical is handled or processed, and what the anticipated exposure is expected to be.

EH&S groups chemicals based on their hazard classes and assigns a unique control banded SOP template to each hazard class.

All chemicals are assigned codes (GHS#s/H-codes) based on the nature and severity of the hazards. H-codes are useful in determining which materials require a SOP as the definitions are standardized worldwide.

Each of the control banded SOP templates correlates to a hazard class that is encompassed by one or more H-codes as listed below.

Principal Investigators (PIs) and researchers must first identify which hazard class a chemical belongs to from their H codes. Following the classification they will choose a control banded SOP using the table above.

Information about hazard classification of a chemical can be found on the container label or Safety Data Sheet (SDS). SDSs are available from manufacturers or via UC SDS Search. H-codes may not always be present on a SDS, but the associated hazard statement will always be present. You can also look up H-codes for chemicals in your UC Chemicals inventory.

Each control banded SOP template has sections marked with red text where laboratory-specific information & safe working procedures must be added.

Upon completion of the template, the SOP must be reviewed and signed by the PI and all researchers planning to use the chemical. A hard copy of the SOP must be stored in the lab and will be inspected by the Departmental Safety Advisors (DSAs) during their inspections.

All lab personnel, who perform hazardous operations, need to document that they have read and understand all SOPs relevant to their research. New students/employees must be given hands-on training for hazardous operations, which should include a review of all relevant SOPs.

Find the appropriate control banded SOP templates for your lab.

 click here for SOP templates

For assistance with using these templates, consult your DSA.