For many people chemicals are a part of everyday life, and they will always be needed in the workplace. Household cleaners, gasoline, motor oil and lawn fertilizers are just a few of the more common chemicals that we use each day. Because chemicals are so much a part of our lives both on and off the job, we need to make sure that employees understand the hazards chemicals present and the safe handling of those chemicals.
A few years ago I was working at a manufacturing company in central California. Our facility was not hooked up to the city sewers so we treated chemicals that we were using in our production facility and sent them by tank truck to the city waste-water facility. The liquid that was transported was acid that had been neutralized with caustic.