Lab Safety

Laboratory Safety

Everyone working at the University of Michigan-Flint has the right to expect a safe and healthy work environment. They also share a responsibility to help assure a safe and healthy environment for themselves and others. We all play an important role in collectively ensuring safety in our laboratories, research areas and classrooms.

The Michigan Safety Portal, Chemical Inventory System is used by designated lab managers, PI’s and other authorized personnel to manage laboratory chemical inventories.

The Laboratory Sign Generator is for the specific use of lab managers, PI’s, and other authorized personnel. It generates PDF laboratory signs for University of Michigan-Flint campus.

Lab Inspection

Chemical Safety

Chemical Safety is a major concern of Laboratory Safety in many labs around campus.

Here you can find information and links to pertinent documents such as:

Waste Management

HAZCOM & Regulated Waste

Campus Chemical Hygiene Plan

The purpose of this program is to ensure that research employees who handle hazardous chemicals are given all of the training and safety protections required under the law. The laboratory standard requires research operations to adopt and implement the university’s Standard Chemical Hygiene Plan and add to it the necessary Standard Operating Procedures for safety in site-specific use of hazardous materials and methods. Once this document set is prepared, employees are given site-specific training, based upon the documents and they serve as a reference for future use with new employees.

At the University of Michigan regional campuses, laboratory safety programs are administered and enforced by their respective Environment, Health and Safety departments. The University of Michigan’s Chemical Hygiene Plan and general laboratory safety guidelines have been adopted in part by UM-Flint and U-M Dearborn however modified by each campus to more accurately reflect specific operations, processes and conditions at their respective campuses.

Campus Biosafety Manual

The UM-Flint Biosafety Manual was adopted from the U-M Ann Arbor Biosafety Manual with some Flint campus-specific modifications. The manual identifies the potential hazards research staff may encounter when working with infectious biological agents, recombinant DNA, and infectious substances. Following the Biosafety Manual will help to ensure that research staff who handle these substances receive the appropriate training and safety precautions required under the law.

The manual may be referenced online or printed for personal use. Maintaining a printed copy of the manual is not required for biosafety inspections. However, you are asked to print the Biosafety Manual cover page with the QR code to the electronic copy and keep that in your respective laboratory safety binder for easy reference by anyone in the lab. Additionally, laboratories must maintain SOPs, document training, etc. in their lab safety binders.

Standard Operating Procedures Templates

The details in a Standard Operating Procedure, outline the process, and provide how-to instructions that enable anyone to perform a task in a consistent manner. The SOP document serves as an instructional resource that allows staff or students to follow step-by-step written procedures for working with or handling different substances, expectations are documented, and actions can be measured against the SOP. Communicating these procedures will allow consistent results and ensure everyone’s continued safety.

A list of all SOP templates and their current revision dates is available on the SOP Templates Spreadsheet.