The Dangerous Substances & Explosive Atmospheres Regulations

Contents
1. What is DSEAR? 2. What are dangerous substances? 3. When DSEAR applies 4. Your obligations 4.1. Assessing risks 4.2. Preventing or controlling risks 4.3. Control measures 4.4. Mitigation 4.5. Preparing emergency plans and procedures 5. Places where explosive atmospheres may occur (‘ATEX’ requirements)

DSEAR stands for the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 (or Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003). Dangerous substances can put people's safety at risk from fire and explosion. However, DSEAR puts duties on employers and the self-employed to protect people from risks to their safety from fires, explosions and similar events in the workplace. This includes members of the public who may be put at risk by work activity.

Dangerous substances are any substances used or present at work that could, if not properly controlled, cause harm to people as a result of a fire or explosion. They can be found in nearly all workplaces and include such things as solvents, paints, varnishes, flammable gases, such as liquid petroleum gas (LPG), dusts from machining and sanding operations and dusts from foodstuffs.

Apart from certain activities involving ships, DSEAR applies whenever:

• There is work being carried out by an employer (or self-employed person)
• A dangerous substance is present (or is liable to be present) at the workplace
• The dangerous substance could be a risk to the safety of people as a result of fires, explosions or similar energetic events

Fires and explosions create harmful physical effects - thermal radiation, overpressure effects and oxygen depletion. These effects can also be caused by other energetic events such as runaway exothermic reactions involving chemicals or decomposition of unstable substances such as peroxides. These events are also covered by DSEAR.

The following examples illustrate the type of activities covered by DSEAR:

• Storage of petrol as a fuel for cars, boats or horticultural machinery
• Use of flammable gases, such as acetylene, for welding
• Handling and storage of waste dusts in a range of manufacturing industries
• Handling and storage of flammable wastes, such as fuel oils
• Welding or other ‘hot work’ on tanks and drums that have contained flammable material
• Work that could release naturally occurring flammable substances, such as methane in coalmines or at landfill sites
• Use of flammable solvents in laboratories
• Storage and display of flammable goods, such as paints, in shops
• Filling, storing and handling aerosols with flammable propellants such as LPG
• Transporting flammable substances in containers around a workplace
• Deliveries from road tankers, such as petrol and bulk powders
• Chemical manufacturing, processing and warehousing
• The petrochemical industry, both onshore and offshore

DSEAR places duties on employers (and the self-employed, who are considered employers for the purposes of the regulations) to assess and eliminate or reduce risks from dangerous substances.

Before work is carried out, employers must assess the fire and explosion risks that may be caused by dangerous substances. This should be an identification and careful examination of:

• The dangerous substances in the workplace
• The work activities involving those substances
• The ways in which those substances and work activities could harm people

The purpose is to help employers decide what they need to do to eliminate or reduce the risks from dangerous substances.

If there is no risk to safety from fires and explosions, or the risk is trivial, no further action is needed. If there are risks, then employers must consider what else needs to be done to comply fully with the requirements of DSEAR.

If an employer has five or more employees, the employer must record the significant findings of the risk assessment.

Employers must put control measures in place to eliminate risks from dangerous substances, or reduce them as far as is reasonably practicable. Where it is not possible to eliminate the risk completely, employers must take measures to control risks and reduce the severity (mitigate) the effects of any fire or explosion.

The best solution is to eliminate the risk completely by replacing the dangerous substance with another substance, or using a different work process. This is called substitution in the regulations.

In practice, this may be difficult to achieve, but it may be possible to reduce the risk by using a less dangerous substance, for example, replacing a low flashpoint liquid with a high flashpoint one. In other situations it may not be possible to replace the dangerous substance at all. For example, it would not be practical to replace petrol with another substance at a filling station.

Where the risk cannot be eliminated, DSEAR requires control measures to be applied in the following priority order:

• Reduce the quantity of dangerous substances to a minimum
• Avoid or minimise releases of dangerous substances
• Control releases of dangerous substances at source
• Prevent the formation of a dangerous atmosphere
• Collect, contain and remove any releases to a safe place (for example, through ventilation)
• Avoid ignition sources
• Avoid adverse conditions (for example, exceeding the limits of temperature or control settings) that could lead to danger
• Keep incompatible substances apart

These control measures should be consistent with the risk assessment and appropriate to the nature of the activity or operation.

In addition to control measures, DSEAR requires employers to put mitigation measures in place. These measures should be consistent with the risk assessment and appropriate to the nature of the activity or operation and include:

• Reducing the number of employees exposed to the risk
• Providing plant that is explosion resistant
• Providing explosion suppression or explosion relief equipment
• Taking measures to control or minimise the spread of fires or explosions
• Providing suitable personal protective equipment (PPE)

Arrangements must be made to deal with emergencies. These plans and procedures should cover safety drills and suitable communication and warning systems and should be in proportion to the risks. If an emergency occurs, workers tasked with carrying out repairs or other necessary work must be provided with the appropriate equipment to allow them to carry out this work safely.

The information in the emergency plans and procedures must be made available to the emergency services to allow them to develop their own plans if necessary.

Providing information, instruction and training for employees

Employees must be provided with relevant information, instructions and training. This includes:

• The dangerous substances present in the workplace and the risks they present, including access to any relevant safety data sheets and information on any other legislation that applies to the dangerous substance
• The findings of the risk assessment and the control measures put in place as a result (including their purpose and how to follow and use them)
• Emergency procedures

Information, instruction and training need only be provided to other people (non-employees) where it is required to ensure their safety. It should be in proportion to the level and type of risk.

The contents of pipes, containers, etc. must be identifiable to alert employees and others to the presence of dangerous substances. If the contents have already been identified in order to meet the requirements of other law, this does not need to be done again under DSEAR.

DSEAR places additional duties on employers where potentially explosive atmospheres may occur in the workplace. These duties include:

• Identifying and classifying (zoning) areas where potentially explosive atmospheres may occur
• Avoiding ignition sources in zoned areas, in particular those from electrical and mechanical equipment
• Where necessary, identifying the entrances to zoned areas
• Providing appropriate anti-static clothing for employees
• Before they come into operation, verifying the overall explosion protection safety of areas where explosive atmospheres may occur