The 9th revision of the UN GHS has been released! Talk about the GHS system.

Release time:

2021-10-14 13:33

The basic regulatory document for the classification of chemicals is the Global Harmonized Classification and Labelling System for Chemicals (The Globally Harmonized System of Classification and labeling of Chemicals, referred to as GHS system for short, and its cover is purple, so it is also called "purple book"). Since the first edition was officially issued in 2003, the United Nations GHS Expert Committee has held regular meetings twice a year to discuss the revision and improvement of the GHS system, and regularly officially release a new revised version every two years.

In September 2021, the 9th revised edition of the UN Purple Book was officially released on the UNECE website. At present, the GHS text is only available in English and French, and the Chinese version is expected to be released in July 2022. Therefore, SDS reports and labels developed under GHS Revision 8 are still valid, and there is still sufficient buffer time for updates before the official release of the Chinese version.

The specific download address is as follows:

https://unece.org/transport/standards/transport/dangerous-goods/ghs-rev9-2021

This revision is mainly aimed at the classification content of explosives, the deletion and modification of individual abbreviations, and the fine-tuning of the style of the decision logic diagram of each category. The revised part of Annex 1 has added dangerous goods transport categories to facilitate the rapid determination of the correspondence between GHS categories and TDG categories.

1. Abbreviations

1. Some abbreviations have been deleted. For example: CA(competent authority), CBI(confidential business information) and so on. Deleted some definitions that are duplicated in subsequent chapters, such as: Chemically unstable gas (chemically unstable gas), Compressed gas (compressed gas), Corrosive to metal (corrosion of metal), Explosive article (explosives), etc.

2. Improve the interpretation of "MARPOL" and "UN Model Regulations", and modify the uniformity of the contents involved in the full text.

3. New abbreviation "VDI" (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure), German Engineers Association. The notes and appendix "ADN", "IMDG Code" and other 10 abbreviations to the first chapter, etc.

2. Classification of explosives

In section 2.1, the definition, scope, classification criteria, etc. of explosives are updated.

1) The definition of "division" (item) and "primary packaging" (primary packaging) has been added;

2) Added "scope" (scope) and "other consideration" (other considerations);

3) Considering that the GHS classification of explosives is basically based on TDG for transportation, and in practice, GHS is not only applied to transportation, but also involves the production, use, storage and disposal of chemicals, etc., a more comprehensive classification consideration is given, and it is proposed to be adjusted from unstable explosives and category 1 (item 1.1~1.6) to category 1 and category 2(2A,2B and 2C).

3. Partial form adjustment

This revision has fine-tuned all hazard decision logic diagrams by replacing thick box arrows with concise line arrows.

4. Add contents to the annex

For the adjustment of Annex 1: In the label element table of each GHS hazard, a column of "UN Model Regulations class or division" is added to clarify the TDG classification corresponding to each GHS hazard for convenient use.

The adjustments to Annex 3 mainly correspond to the changes in the classification of explosives, including the deletion of hazard descriptions H200, H201, H202, H203 and H205, and the addition of H209, H210 and H211.

The GHS instrument provides a "building block" approach for countries to implement GHS. That is, countries can flexibly select all or part of the content elements of GHS to implement according to their national conditions and the actual needs of the competent authorities. If the competent authority of a country decides to adopt a hazard classification of the GHS, it must adopt a classification standard that is fully consistent with the GHS classification.

This has also led to the fact that the coverage of the classification of hazardous chemicals around the world is not completely consistent, and there is no real global unified classification of chemicals, which has caused companies to encounter some obstacles in international trade.

Hazard classification under the United Nations GHS system

GHS is a classification based on the inherent risk of a chemical, rather than on its risk. GHS has a total of 29 hazard classification categories, including 17 physical hazard categories (including the newly added desensitized explosives in the 6th revision of the GHS system), 10 health hazard categories, and 2 environmental hazard categories. Hazard categories represent the physical, health, or environmental hazards inherent in a chemical substance. There are several hazard categories under each hazard classification category, and the classification criteria are further divided into several levels to reflect the severity of hazards within a hazard classification category.

There are also differences in the classification of hazardous chemicals due to differences between countries and the lag in regulatory updates. However, before that, there were huge differences in the classification standards and risk publicity requirements of chemicals in various countries around the world, and they were not related to each other. The establishment of the GHS system and its gradual promotion and application in the world have greatly promoted the safety of chemicals. Management has also had a profound impact on international trade.

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