Laboratory Safety

The Laboratory Safety program oversees safety and compliance in all UW research and teaching laboratory spaces to reduce the risk of injury and exposure, decrease the risk of property loss, lessen the likelihood of lost research, and minimize environmental damage.

Laboratory safety practices include appropriate facilities and equipment, adequate training, personal protective equipment, chemical management, standard operating procedures, waste handling, signage, proper laboratory practices and safe working conditions. Laboratory safety helps protect the UW community of students, faculty, staff and visitors, and includes oversight for compliance and safety, training and outreach, institutional support for incident response, building design, and collaboration with UW committees.

You can find detailed information about laboratory safety practices in the UW Laboratory Safety Manual including state regulations, UW policies and safe work practices. The manual in addition to laboratory-specific safety documents serve as a chemical hygiene plan, which establishes procedures, equipment, personal protective equipment, and work practices to protect employees from the health hazards of the chemicals used in the laboratory.

Laboratory safety inspections

Laboratory safety inspections are routinely performed by EH&S safety professionals for all research and teaching laboratories and are scheduled by EH&S for each room meeting the definition of a lab in a building or complex (in the case of Health Sciences and UW Bothell).

The Laboratory Safety Inspection team routinely visits over 4,000 lab rooms (about 1,000 research and teaching groups) on the Seattle, South Lake Union, Friday Harbor and Bothell campuses, as well as labs located in off-site or leased buildings (e.g., Roosevelt, Harborview, Queen Anne, SODO).

The chair, director, or head of a department (institute or division) is notified in advance of the pending inspections in a building. The inspections are then scheduled with principal investigators (PIs), chemical hygiene officers (CHOs), lab managers or a responsible party. The inspections take approximately one hour to complete and recur about every 12-15 months.

The inspections follow a standardized checklist with links to explanations and regulatory references for the requirement around the yes/no/NA questions. The Laboratory Safety Inspection team may ask for corrections based on findings during the inspection and will also provide consultations and suggestions intended to help the lab find practical and sustainable ways to make changes.

Inspection reports are typically provided within three business days to the PI / responsible party and CHO. The electronic dashboard lists the questions that have a finding, provides a date field and comment field for lab responses, a field for EH&S acknowledgement of the lab information, and a safety performance rating. If the lab has a rating of 85 or above, the laboratory dashboard can be used to generate an award certificate and an updated caution sign that includes the lab safety award emblem. Labs have 30 calendar days to respond to findings on their report.

Note: If a serious or imminent hazard is identified while performing a safety inspection, EH&S would immediately escalate the matter to assure prompt resolution.

Inspection-related tools and resources

The inspection checklist has been developed to support each laboratory in building and maintaining a safety program that meets the expectations outlined in the Laboratory Safety Manual. The checklist has these sections: Administrative Plans/Materials; Signage; Hazard Communication; Lab Training; Personal Protective Equipment; Emergency Kits; Food/Beverage; Emergency Eyewash/Shower; Ventilation; Hazardous Waste and Disposal; Chemical Storage/Process; Compressed Gas Cylinders/Cryogen and LPG; Biological Safety; Pressure Vessel; Housekeeping; Electrical Safety; Radiation Safety; Fire Safet/Prevention; Exit Acess/Corridors; Seismic Safety; and Machinery.

Each checklist question is a live link to more information about the question; generally, regulatory references will be provided, as well as the best practices needed to satisfy the question. This information is updated as needed, providing additional guidance or updated regulatory information.

The questions may change periodically, as approximately every 18 months the checklist is reviewed and updated if needed. New questions may be posed and other questions retired or revised. The intention is to ask the best questions that support the program and fit the time frame of the inspection. The checklist questions used to calculate the lab safety rating are considered core and are not likely to change.

In addition to the checklist questions, specific hazard information is gathered about the laboratories using check boxes. This information is intended to help understand risks that may be associated with the lab activities, in addition to the chemical inventory information provided from MyChem.

Visit the Laboratory Safety Dashboard page to access the appropriate portal to the dashboard. Inspection reports and metrics are available to view based on your access level.

Principal investigators (PIs), responsible parties, chemical hygiene officers (CHO), and any delegates may access the PI portal of the Lab Safety Dashboard to review and respond to the current inspection findings and comments. After it is published, a report is available for 30 calendar days; after that time the report becomes part of the history, which are the closed inspection reports available for review that cannot be edited. The department chair for the PI or responsible party will have 15 business days to respond to any outstanding findings through the chair portal of the dashboard. The dashboard provides a PDF copy of the inspection report, the UW net ID and name of the responsible party, the inspection date, the date the dashboard will close, the number of findings, the number of responses received, and EH&S acknowledgement of each response. There is also a space for comments from the lab parties.

Additional tools accessed on the PI portal of the dashboard include a self-inspection tool, a staff list, and lab equipment records.

The dashboard also shows the safety rating calculated from the inspection results. The UW target, the UW average, the average for the College or School where the lab belongs, and the average rating of the home department are given as reference.

Benchmark	Rating %
UW Target:	85
UW Average:	83
College/School Average:	84
Department Average:	89

If the lab receives a rating of 85 or above, this message is given: Based upon your recent laboratory inspection findings, you are meeting the University expectations for safety. Congratulations! You have been issued an award certificate. A link to print the PI Award Certificate is provided.

If the lab receives a rating between 84 and 75, this message is given: Based upon your recent laboratory inspection findings, you are nearing University expectations.

If the lab receives a rating below 75, this message is given: Based upon your recent laboratory inspection findings, opportunity for improvement is evident. Please work with EH&S to improve safety in your laboratory.

In collaboration with a UW advisory task force, EH&S has selected 30 questions from the Lab Safety Checklist which focus on chemical safety, training and personal protective equipment to establish a laboratory safety performance rating. These questions are common to institutions with laboratory safety programs and have been vetted by the task force as questions that would be well received and accepted by the research community as areas with opportunity for improvement. These target questions address the most pressing issues related to laboratory safety. A rating of 85 or higher is considered to be meeting safety expectations.

When a laboratory receives a safety rating of 85 or greater, the dashboard will read: Based upon your recent laboratory inspection findings, you are meeting the University expectations for safety. Congratulations! You have been issued an Award Certificate.

Laboratory Safety Award certificates for the lab group and for the CHO can be printed out directly from the Lab Safety Dashboard.

The Lab Safety Award symbol can be displayed on your Caution Sign by editing it in MyChem.

The laboratory safety inspection helps to prevent the potential for injuries and incidents and helps to ensure University compliance with federal, state, and local requirements. EH&S works closely with responsible parties to resolve findings identified through the inspection within a specified timeframe.

Unresolved findings that are recurring or more serious may be escalated to the Institutional Chemical & Physical Safety (ICAPS) committee. Findings are often resolved within the timeframe and not escalated to ICAPS for review. Any issues identified that may be immediately dangerous to life and health are addressed immediately.

View an overview of the escalation procedure on the ICAPS webpage.

What you can do to stay safe

Laboratory Safety Dashboard allows you to access and review your latest laboratory safety inspection results; see your laboratory safety performance rating, the department and college average, the UW-wide average, and the UW laboratory safety performance target; respond to and document correction of deficiencies online
Submit Chemical Waste Collection Requests to schedule one-time or routine chemical pick-ups
Download or order a copy of the current UW Lab Safety Manual
Use the Lab Safety Training Matrix to determine necessary trainings for all lab personnel
Access training records for all lab personnel at the My Training portal
Print out Lab-specific training templates to customize and document lab training for all lab personnel
Use the PPE Hazard Assessment tool to select and review appropriate PPE with all lab personnel
Read the Peroxide forming compounds guide about the hazards of and protocols for using peroxide forming chemicals in your lab
Print out standard operating procedure (SOP) templates to customize and document chemical handling and procedures specific to your lab
Access your chemical inventory through MyChem to review and update it annually, as well as print out current caution signs for all lab spaces
Review information on proper storage of flammable chemicals that require refrigeration or freezing
Look up the chart of incompatible chemicals to ensure all chemicals are properly segregated when stored
Create and print out a lab floorplan for your space using our template; a multi-room floorplan template is also available
Review prudent practices for fume hoods
Learn about what is required for using compressed gas cylinders in your lab spaces
Understand your responsibilities as a dean, director, chair, investigator, lab manager, safety professional, administrator and student as outlined in Executive Order 55, Lab Safety Manual Section 1C, and the UW Lab Safety Responsibility Matrix.
Take the Accident Investigation Training to learn more about root cause analysis and when to report accidents via the Online Accident Reporting System

Standard operating procedures

All chemicals actively in use should be covered by a standard operating protocol (SOP). Please visit the Chemical SOPs page for a complete list of SOP templates available for use by any UW lab. If used by your laboratory, the templates must be modified and customized as necessary to make them specific to your laboratory conditions.

Secondary chemical container labels

All chemical containers should list the chemical name and hazards of the contents. This includes original, repurposed, and secondary containers. Secondary chemical container labels allow the user to identify chemical composition and mixtures while indicating hazards.

Secondary Chemical Label #1

Secondary Chemical Label #2

Secondary Chemical Label #3

Chemical waste management

University personnel who generate hazardous chemical waste at the University (including all campuses and off-site locations) are required to follow chemical waste management practices.

EH&S recommends hazardous chemical waste generators use the Hazardous Waste Checklist as a self-audit tool to verify compliance with waste accumulation rules and prepare for periodic hazardous waste inspections by the Washington State Department of Ecology.

Refer to the UW Laboratory Safety Manual for additional information.

This list of links is an informal collection of websites that offer training videos covering best practices for working in laboratory spaces, using specific types of laboratory equipment, handling certain chemicals and dealing with different types of emergencies that can happen in a laboratory.

American Chemical Society – ACS’ Hazard Assessment website offers a variety of risk assessment documents and tools for work with chemicals and gases, and also offers checklists and document templates
Dow – Dow Chemical Company’s collection of videos aimed at introducing laboratory staff and students to safe laboratory practices with some basic understanding of key principles of behavior within the laboratory setting.
JoVE - Journal of Visualized Experiments, is the world's first peer reviewed scientific video journal devoted to publishing scientific research in a visual format to help researchers learn new experimental techniques.
Lab Safety Institute – an international nonprofit education organization for laboratory safety, provides laboratory safety training videos through their YouTube channel covering a wide variety of laboratory safety topics.
Lab Safety Workspace – this group offers free, short safety training courses to scientists. It is a joint project of the New Hampshire IDeA Network of Biological Research Excellence (NH-INBRE), the Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) office at Dartmouth College, and BioRAFT.
Northwestern University – this university maintains a library of safety videos on best practices for various lab equipment and chemical usage, including liquid nitrogen tanks, biological safety cabinets, Geiger counters, and gas regulators.
Pressure Vessel Safety – this video from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board explains the codes and standards necessary for safe pressure vessel usage.
UCLA – University of California, LA, has a library of safety videos covering lab PPE, fire safety, use of pyrophoric liquids, and safety culture in the laboratory.
UC San Diego – University of California, San Diego, has a library of safety videos on best practices for fume hoods, compressed gases, and flash chromatography.

More Information

Laboratory Safety Equipment

Biological safety cabinets

Biological safety cabinets (BSCs) are used to protect personnel, products and the environment from exposure to biohazards and cross contamination. BSCs are inspected and serviced annually by EH&S safety professionals. To learn more about safe practices and how BSCs work, watch this video from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Refer to the Biological Safety Cabinets page for more information about BSCs.

Fume hoods

Fume hoods are a primary method of exposure control in the laboratory. A fume hood is a ventilated enclosure that usually vents separately from the building’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system and not recirculated into the building. Fume hoods should be used when working with toxic compounds or compounds with a boiling point below 120°C. Fume hoods, or other effective local ventilation, must be provided and used when the materials used will exceed exposure limits in the laboratory. Fume hoods are inspected and serviced annually by EH&S safety professionals. Refer to the Fume Hoods: Use, Inspection and Maintenance for more information.

Other safety equipment

Laboratory safety equipment includes engineering controls, eyewashes, showers, and fire extinguishers. EH&S professionals do an annual check of these items to ensure they are adequately maintained and routinely tested.

Services available

The Laboratory Safety program provides the following additional services:

Consultations about lab safety practices

To request a consultation, email labcheck@uw.edu Refer to the Laboratory Safety Manual for detailed information on lab safety practices.

Contacts

Contact the Lab Safety Team at labcheck@uw.edu or call 206.685.3993.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

EH&S performs lab inspections on a schedule and annually evaluates all research and teaching labs. The inspection schedule generally does not allow for additional inspections.

PIs are encouraged to notify EH&S when setting up a new lab or moving to a new location so they can be added to the inspection schedule for their building. Consultation can be provided at that time if requested.

Keep in mind that a lab can conduct a self-inspection at any time.