As specified in the Chemical Hygiene Plan Template, chemical inventories must be maintained for all hazardous chemicals. The Chemical Inventory Guidance document describes what chemicals should be inventoried, the minimum information required to be tracked, and how often it should be updated.
Which Chemicals Should be Inventoried?
- Hazardous chemicals include any material that, because of its quantity, concentration, physical characteristics, or chemical characteristics, poses a significant present or potential hazard to human health and safety or to the environment if released. These include, but are not limited to, laboratory chemicals; compressed gases; liquids under pressure; explosives; highly reactive, corrosive, flammable and toxic substances; and substances such as lubricating oils, dielectric oils, fuel oils, fuels and propellants. Inventoried chemicals can be in any physical state: solid, liquid (pure or mixtures) or gas (pure / mixtures / cryogenic).
- Research samples not stored in purchased chemical containers for certain hazard categories and/or in unusually large quantities must also be included in the inventory. Review the Chemical Inventory Guidance document for more information about research sample requirements.
- Engineered nanomaterials, both those that are purchased and those that are fabricated in the lab as described on ehs.mit.edu >> keyword search “Nanomaterials”.
Submitting Your Chemical Inventory (Excel) To EHS
Chemical inventories should be maintained on a regular, ongoing basis.
Chemical inventories must be submitted once per year during Annual Chemical Reporting season (generally starting in October of each year). Note that the requirement to submit the entire inventory should not be confused with the separate requirement for Annual Chemical Reporting.
You must use the Excel Template below to submit your full inventory to EHS each year.
Download Chemical Inventory Template
For labs using EHS Assistant (EHSA), you are still required to use the Excel template below. Step-by-step instructions on how to export your inventory to Excel from EHSA can be found in this user guide.
EHS Assistant Chemical Inventory System
EHS Assistant (EHSA) is the EHS Office-supported inventory system.
EHSA offers an easy-to-use, streamlined user interface for quickly adding new chemicals. Other useful features include the ability for labs to search within their department(s) for chemicals being shared by other labs, a button to search for SDS’s by chemical container, and the ability to have full or partial inventory uploads at any time using its Excel upload template.
What You Need To Know To Get Started
Working with the EHS office and your Department EHS Coordinator, you and/or your lab can get trained on how to use the chemical inventory system provided by MIT (EHS Assistant) and decide the best implementation strategy for your lab. Contact your EHS Coordinator or email environment@mit.edu to schedule an in-lab demonstration. If you already have a well-maintained inventory in another platform, please feel free to contact EHS about migrating this inventory into EHSA as well.
EHS Assistant Login
EHS Assistant Home Page. To log in, use your MIT certificate authentication and password.
EHS Assistant User Guides
- EHSA Chemical Inventory Guidance: Brief tutorials on viewing your inventory, searching for items, adding, deleting, sharing, and moving items
- Exporting Your Inventory To An Excel Sheet: Tutorial to walk you through exporting your inventory to Excel
- Locations Structure: Tutorial on how new locations (more specific than rooms) can be created and edited by users
- Chemical Inventory Verification (Reconciliation): Tutorial on using EHSA to run a verification of the accuracy of an inventory and how to update it using this function
- Annual Chemical Reporting
- If your lab has a complete, up-to-date chemical inventory in the EHS Office-supported inventory system (EHS Assistant – EHSA), there is a filter you can run to view your reportable chemicals at a glance.
- From the homepage, select the Inventory tab. Then select Quick Chemical Entry and Search. select the List Filter dropdown, then select MIT Annual Chemical Reporting. You will now see your list of reportable chemicals.
- On the resulting page, select Options / Export to Excel if you wish to export your reportable chemicals list to an Excel sheet.
- Please note you must have CAS#’s associated with your chemicals for this filter to work.
As specified in the Chemical Hygiene Plan Template, chemical inventories must be maintained for all hazardous chemicals. The Chemical Inventory Guidance document describes what chemicals should be inventoried, the minimum information required to be tracked, and how often it should be updated.
Which Chemicals Should be Inventoried?
- Hazardous chemicals include any material that, because of its quantity, concentration, physical characteristics, or chemical characteristics, poses a significant present or potential hazard to human health and safety or to the environment if released. These include, but are not limited to, laboratory chemicals; compressed gases; liquids under pressure; explosives; highly reactive, corrosive, flammable and toxic substances; and substances such as lubricating oils, dielectric oils, fuel oils, fuels and propellants. Inventoried chemicals can be in any physical state: solid, liquid (pure or mixtures) or gas (pure / mixtures / cryogenic).
- Research samples not stored in purchased chemical containers for certain hazard categories and/or in unusually large quantities must also be included in the inventory. Review the Chemical Inventory Guidance document for more information about research sample requirements.
- Engineered nanomaterials, both those that are purchased and those that are fabricated in the lab as described on ehs.mit.edu >> keyword search “Nanomaterials”.
Submitting Your Chemical Inventory (Excel) To EHS
Chemical inventories should be maintained on a regular, ongoing basis.
Chemical inventories must be submitted once per year during Annual Chemical Reporting season (generally starting in October of each year). Note that the requirement to submit the entire inventory should not be confused with the separate requirement for Annual Chemical Reporting.
You must use the Excel Template below to submit your full inventory to EHS each year.
Download Chemical Inventory Template
For labs using EHS Assistant (EHSA), you are still required to use the Excel template below. Step-by-step instructions on how to export your inventory to Excel from EHSA can be found in this user guide.
EHS Assistant Chemical Inventory System
EHS Assistant (EHSA) is the EHS Office-supported inventory system.
EHSA offers an easy-to-use, streamlined user interface for quickly adding new chemicals. Other useful features include the ability for labs to search within their department(s) for chemicals being shared by other labs, a button to search for SDS’s by chemical container, and the ability to have full or partial inventory uploads at any time using its Excel upload template.
What You Need To Know To Get Started
Working with the EHS office and your Department EHS Coordinator, you and/or your lab can get trained on how to use the chemical inventory system provided by MIT (EHS Assistant) and decide the best implementation strategy for your lab. Contact your EHS Coordinator or email environment@mit.edu to schedule an in-lab demonstration. If you already have a well-maintained inventory in another platform, please feel free to contact EHS about migrating this inventory into EHSA as well.
EHS Assistant Login
EHS Assistant Home Page. To log in, use your MIT certificate authentication and password.
EHS Assistant User Guides
- EHSA Chemical Inventory Guidance: Brief tutorials on viewing your inventory, searching for items, adding, deleting, sharing, and moving items
- Exporting Your Inventory To An Excel Sheet: Tutorial to walk you through exporting your inventory to Excel
- Locations Structure: Tutorial on how new locations (more specific than rooms) can be created and edited by users
- Chemical Inventory Verification (Reconciliation): Tutorial on using EHSA to run a verification of the accuracy of an inventory and how to update it using this function
- Annual Chemical Reporting
- If your lab has a complete, up-to-date chemical inventory in the EHS Office-supported inventory system (EHS Assistant – EHSA), there is a filter you can run to view your reportable chemicals at a glance.
- From the homepage, select the Inventory tab. Then select Quick Chemical Entry and Search. select the List Filter dropdown, then select MIT Annual Chemical Reporting. You will now see your list of reportable chemicals.
- On the resulting page, select Options / Export to Excel if you wish to export your reportable chemicals list to an Excel sheet.
- Please note you must have CAS#’s associated with your chemicals for this filter to work.