October is National Biosafety Month, a time to focus on your lab’s biosafety practices and policies. For 2019, EH&S is focusing on biosafety beyond the lab. We are encouraging you to reflect and seek opportunities to strengthen your practices related to biohazards outside of the lab.
1. Transport biohazards safely
Keep these two posters in an easily accessible location in your workspace.
EH&S has a new Spill Response Poster that instructs you what to do in the event of a radiological, chemical or biohazardous spill. For all spills, you should S.W.I.M.:
Many safety measures and the use of PPE can prevent spills and exposures to hazardous materials. However, if you do experience an exposure, your safety, and the safety of others, depends on your response to the incident.
Use the Spill Response Poster as a guide to clean up radiological, chemical and biohazardous spills.
Post in your lab alongside the Exposure Response Poster.
Has your lab created a tool, resource, or practice to enhance safety in your workspace?
Submit it to EH&S for a chance to be recognized at the 2019 Laboratory Safety Awards & Innovations Event.
To enter, email a description of your innovation to labcheck@uw.edu (with ”Innovation” as the subject header). Selected innovations will be shared at the event on December 9 through presentations and posters.
On July 8, 2019, EH&S launched a new version of the Lab Safety Dashboard, a tool vital to our campus’ safety management in research and teaching laboratories. The dashboard has portals for scientific department principal investigators, chairs, deans and UW executives that allow them (or their designee) to review safety performance data and inspection reports for their units.
The Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) is implementing a new Boating Safety Program for students and personnel who use University-owned boats or operate boats as part of their affiliation with the University. The Boating Safety Program is a University-wide program, which manages motored vessels and non-motorized paddle-craft.
If you are a UW student, personnel or volunteer who operates boats as part of your affiliation with the University, please do the following:
As of May 1, 2019, personnel who conduct work in University animal care and use areas will no longer have the option to decline the initial animal use medical screening. The medical screening evaluates and mitigates potential health risks related to working with research animals.
During your lab’s next EH&S survey visit, you will be asked a new question from the survey checklist if PPE is adequately available for everyone. The desired response to this question is a confident “Yes!”
Do you assess the risk in your lab work? It is important to conduct a risk assessment whenever a new experiment, procedure or project is developed in your lab. A risk assessment focuses on hazard identification at each step or task level, and can provide essential information for enhancing safety practices, establishing proper procedures, and ensuring all lab members are properly trained. EH&S’s new Lab R.A.T. (Laboratory Risk Assessment Tool) can be used to help with gathering the information you need.
