A survey on the safe production status of hazardous chemicals companies is soon to be carried out in China's urban areas, as the Chinese State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) released a notice calling for further implementation of the country’s ‘12th Five-Year Planning’ of work safety deployment on Monday 7 November 2011.
In the 12th Five-Year strategy of industrial development, China established in early March this year a systemic legal framework of Hazardous Chemicals (‘HC’ in short) management. This framework not only covers the identification of hazardous/dangerous chemicals (Inventory compiling) but also measures and implementation documents on HC registration and their safe use (sales, storage and transport). While the legislative developments are still ongoing, the authorities set about strengthening the practice of HC supervision and management.
Subjects of this Survey:
Companies located in urban areas and engaged in the production, storage and commercial operation (including sales) of hazardous chemicals. Gasoline stations, refueling stations and operation companies without storage facilities are excluded from this survey. ‘Urban areas’ refers to well-developed city districts with complete municipal utilities and other public facilities.
Investigation Items include:
(1) General conditions of the company;
(2) Name and volume of the hazardous chemicals involved;
(3) Technical process of the production, automated assembly conditions and major safety risks;
(4) Name, volume, and monitoring conditions (testing alarm, interlock device, video monitoring, etc.) of the major hazardous installations;
(5) Storage volume/method and automated monitoring conditions (testing alarm, interlock device, video monitoring, etc.) of the hazard chemicals;
(6) Having raw materials input or products output through pipes? (if yes, state the name of the materials and the length of pipes);
(7) The surrounding environment conditions of the company;
(8) Number of accidents occurred in history (severity as ‘relative large or above’) and status of safety production in the past 3 years;
(9) Plans of relocation, production switch or business closure (including time and result) and main existing problems;
(10) Relocation expenses and source of funding;
(11) Local governmental policies on the relocation, production switch or business closure of HC companies;
(12) Suggestions on the relocation, production switch or business closure of HC companies.
Companies that are surveyed are required to return the completed survey form to the local authorities of work safety (province level) which will then collect and submit the information to SAWS before 31st March 2012.
