Rose,
When I was acting as CHO at Western Technical College in LaCrosse WI we had the stockroom remodeled to make it OSHA compliant and had to deal with this same issue. It's my recollection that the lips were for open shelves, but that shelves with liquids also had to have containment trays under the bottles in case of container breakage or damage, and those have lips. Our physical plant guys had the wood shop guys make the cupboards all different widths, but we're easily able to have lucite containment btrays fabricated and I doubt they were expensive, given who we are taking about ordering them.. I insisted they get them for all shelves on the grounds that they might someday have liquids in them, if our chemical needs changed.
They went idiotically stupid on the shelves for the flammables cupboards though, and bought commercial ones that said they could easily be cut to length, but doing so cut the end lips off, so they would have only directed the flow of a spill down the sides of the cupboard rather than contained it.
My advice is to talk to your vendor for the shelves about the need for lips and trays because chemical cupboard vendors know about that and either will supply them, or will know a source for you to get them.
I do NOT recommend having your wood shop build them. Too much is easy to do but turns out to be a problem. Like corroding hinges, shelf supports, handles, locks, etc. And in out case, non- standard sizing that continues to make everything hard in that beautiful stockroom.
Meg Osterby
Meg Osterby
Good morning wise ones,
I was recently made CHO at my institution and am still figuring things out. One thing I noticed is that our chemical shelves do not all have lips. I've tried looking it up but am having difficulty understanding the requirements. Here are
my questions:
1)
Does a shelf that has a door need a lip? (For instance, flammable cabinets and other cabinets with doors.)
2)
I'm assuming all open shelves need lips. How high/tall does that lip need to be? (The shelves in my stockroom have lips of approximately an inch, is that good enough?)
3)
May secondary containers be used as the "lip" or does the lip need to be physically attached to the shelf?
Thank you for whatever guidance you can give me.
Rose
Rose Rakers, Ph.D.
Director of Chemical Laboratories & Chemical Hygiene Officer
Benedictine University
5700 College Rd
Lisle, IL 60532
630-829-6571
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