The primary aim of the Cards is to promote the safe use of chemicals in the workplace and the main target users are therefore workers and those responsible for occupational safety and health.
This project began during the 1980s with the objective of developing a product to disseminate the appropriate hazard information on chemicals at the workplace in an understandable and precise way.
Translated versions of the Cards exist in different languages: Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish and others.
The objective of the ICSC project is to make essential health and safety information on chemicals available to as wide an audience as possible, especially at the workplace level.
ICSC cards follow a fixed format which is designed to give a consistent presentation of the information, and is sufficiently concise to be printed onto two sides of a harmonized sheet of paper, an important consideration to permit easy use in the workplace.
The preparation of ICSC is an ongoing process of drafting and peer reviewing by a group of scientists working for a number of specialized scientific institutions concerned with occupational health and safety in different countries.
177), 1990; the European Union Council Directive 98/24/EC; and the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) criteria.
If the two methods for hazard communication can be combined, then the amount of knowledge available to the safety representative or shop floor workers will be more than doubled.