The South African industrial sector endorses GHS

South Africa has adopted a modified version of the United Nations' Globally Harmonized System (GHS) for classifying and labeling chemicals in its industrial sector.

The Regulation comes into force on 29 September 2022. Companies have 18 months to meet the new requirements. From September 2022 onwards, manufacturers and importers of hazardous chemicals will be required to comply with the requisites silhouetted in the Regulation of Hazardous Chemical agents (RHCA)

On 29 March 2021, the Department of Labor published a regulation that is part of South Africa's umbrella legislation on worker safety—the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1995. The update to this law comes as its twentieth-anniversary approaches.

The GHS establishes requirements for classifying and labeling chemicals, including providing safety data sheets (SDSs) to accompany each shipment of a chemical. However, it does not apply in cases where the hazardous properties are less than those classified under section 4 of Schedule 1

The UN Globally Harmonized System Revision 8, South Africa's firsthand regulation that oversees GHS, is the ground rule for the Regulation of Hazardous Chemical agents. This regulation aligns with the UN Globally Harmonized System Revision 8.

It also requires employers to:

• Train all employees on properly using hazardous chemicals and safety practices, comprehending conditioning them to understand GHS labels, signs, and SDSs.
• Furnish the applicable personal protective equipment (PPE) to employees
• Perform air monitoring to check for exposure to substances in the workplace, ensuring that they don't exceed a specified threshold.

The GHS only details requirements for the industrial sector. However, South African departments responsible for agriculture, transport, and consumer health have announced that they will also implement it in those areas.

Violating the regulation is an offense that can lead to imprisonment or fines.

Nonetheless, the regulation does not require the classification of certain types of hazardous materials:

• Explosives – all categories,
• Extremely toxic (oral, dermal contact, inhalation), category 5
• Skin irritation, category 3
• Eye damage/eye irritation, category 2B
• Hazardous to the aquatic environment short-term (acute), category 2 and 3
• Category 3 and category 4 substances that are dangerous to the environment if allowed to enter water supplies