Handbook for Process Safety in Laboratories and Pilot Plants

Appendix C Control Banding Strategies

The concept of Control Banding was introduced in Section 9.3.4. A Control Banding (CB) strategy is used to group risks into control categories or bands based on combinations of the hazard and exposure information of the materials. Four distinct Control Banding (CB) strategies are covered in this appendix. They are as follows:

1. C.1 Laboratory Fire Hazard Ratings

2. C.2 Laboratory Chemical Safety Level (CSL) Ratings

3. C.3 Toxicity Hazard Ratings

4. C.4 Biosafety Level Ratings

5. C.5 Other Hazards in Biological Research Labs

Other control strategy resources are available, for example, nanomaterial control bands [226]. The goal of the discussions in this appendix is to provide LAPP investigators with information on how hazard "control bands" are used to rank the severity of the risk given the properties which characterize the hazard.

As was noted in Section 9.3.4, Control Banding strategies involve three basic steps to help establish controls:

1. Rating the relative degree of the consequence represented by the hazardous material (what is its possible severity, given the quantities in use and storage)
2. Identifying and analyzing the known or expected work activities and work environment or process in which the hazardous material will be used (what is its likelihood for exposure and harm)
3. Developing safeguards, controls, and mitigation requirements for individual classes or bands of hazards to manage the risks (how to reduce the potential consequences and ...