Products Excluded from WHMIS: What You Need to Know
July 9, 2019
What Is a WHMIS Exempt Product?
Some products are exempt from the WHMIS 2015 legislation and are not required to have a WHMIS label or SDS. Buyers and product users, however, are required to comply with labelling requirements set out by the federal acts and regulations. Such regulatory acts include: the Explosives Act, the Food and Drugs Act, Pest Control Products Act, Consumer Product Safety Act, Tobacco Act, and the Nuclear Safety Control Act. In addition, employers are also required to provide workers and staff with training and education relating to safe handling, health effects and storage of these exempt products.
Do all products and chemicals need an SDS under WHMIS?
WHMIS regulation states an SDS is required for all hazardous products at your worksite. Some products in the workplace are exempt from this rule. WHMIS may not apply to all products especially if they are regulated under other legislation in Canada.
Do I need an SDS for a WHMIS Exempt Product?
Products that are exempt from WHMIS regulation can still have hazardous properties and your workplace chemical safety program should have an SDS for all products that workers could be potentially exposed to. Workers need to be trained on the hazards of each product they are using including the safe use, storage, and disposal of that product.
WHMIS Regulations lay out the requirements for suppliers and importers of hazardous products used in Canada. The Canadian supplier or importer is required to determine if their products are hazardous and prepare and maintain Safety Data Sheets and labels to provide to their customers.
There are certain products that are not covered under WHMIS. It is important to note that although the product types listed below are not covered under WHMIS regulation, they are covered under other legislation and the users of these products must comply with any labelling requirements within the applicable acts and regulations. An exemption from WHMIS regulation does not mean non-hazardous. Your chemical safety program should cover all hazardous products that workers could be exposed to. An employer is still required to be aware of the hazards of each product they are using and to train and educate their workforce on safe use, storage, and disposal.
WHMIS Exempt Products
Product types excluded by WHIMIS can be categorized as follows:
- Pest Control Products
- Manufactured Articles
- Consumer Products
- Cosmetics, Devices, Drugs, or Food
- Other Products
1. Pest Control Products – pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides
One of the most common categories of WHMIS-exempt products are pesticides. Herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides all fall under this umbrella. These products are covered under the Pest Control Products Act (PCPA).
Although manufacturers of these products are not required to provide a WHMIS 2015 SDS or label, here at Chemscape we are seeing some manufacturers who are providing GHS SDSs for pesticide products. As noted above, WHMIS-exempt does not mean they are not hazardous - some pesticides present severe health hazards such as organ and reproductive toxicity. If a GHS SDS is not available from the manufacturer, the consumer can continue to use an MSDS in the WHMIS 1988 format (the same applies to all categories covered on this list).
2. Manufactured Articles – printer cartridges, pens, electrical equipment
These are products that:
- are shaped or designed during manufacture to certain specifications.
- their intended use is the product or shape as a whole.
- will not release hazardous products during normal use or installation.
Some examples of manufactured articles are printer cartridges, pens, and electrical equipment. An SDS is not needed if you are using a manufactured article as intended. However, if you are handling the product at other stages such as manufacturing or recycling, product information regarding the hazards of that process would be required.
3. Consumer Products – WD-40, brake cleaner, bleach, toilet bowl cleaner, Windex
Consumer chemical products are products that are available for sale to the general public at retail outlets such as Canadian Tire. These products are regulated under the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act. Generally, they are sold and used in smaller quantities than a chemical purchased for workplace use and the labelling of the consumer chemical will cover the directions for safe use.
It is up to the supplier whether to provide SDSs for these products, but we do see that some larger retail outlets have SDSs available for their consumer chemical products.
If a consumer product is brought into a workplace environment, it should be treated no differently than any other workplace chemical. The hazards need to be understood, and employees working with this chemical should receive proper training and education for safe use.
4. Cosmetics, Devices, Drugs, or Food
These products are covered under the Food and Drugs Act. Some examples we see in the Chemscape library include Aspirin tablets, veterinary drugs, and some soap products (cosmetic).
5. Other Products Excluded from WHMIS
As above, the same applies - if a product that falls into this category is brought into a workplace environment, training and education on the hazards is required for employees working with these products. WHMIS 1988 MSDSs, product labelling, and Information Sheets, if available, can be used to determine the hazards.
- Wood or products made of wood.
- Explosives as defined in the Explosives Act.
- Nuclear substances within the meaning of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, that are radioactive.
- Hazardous waste that is being sold for recycling, recovery, or is intended for disposal.
- Tobacco and tobacco products as defined in the Tobacco Act.
Can I get an SDS for WHMIS Exempt Products?
The answer is yes. But getting these WHMIS exempt products from suppliers can be particularly challenging. Working with a trusted company that has existing supplier relationships like Chemscape Safety Technologies can simplify this time-consuming task of hunting down SDSs for WHMIS exempt products.
Chemscape monitors all SDSs in our system for significant changes on a 3-year cycle and updates all WHMIS exempt SDS which are labelled as “Not Controlled” in the sdsBinders system.
