What is the OSHA 30 Year Rule?
When talking about the OSHA 30 year rule, people are usually referring to OSHA Standard 1910.1020 “Access to Employee Exposure and Medical Records.” The law is intended to provide employees and their designated representatives a right of access to relevant exposure and medical records for the duration of their employment, plus 30 years.
In regards to chemical exposure records, the standard requires employers to keep some record of the identity of the substances or agents to which employees are exposed for 30 years beyond the end-use of the chemical. This requirement can be satisfied by retaining the SDS for those chemicals. If an employer chooses not to retain the actual SDS, then OSHA requires them to keep a record of the chemical identity (chemical name if known) of the substance or agent, plus information regarding where and when it was used.
If able to do so, many companies will likely find retaining the SDS to be less cumbersome than the additional tracking information.
If you are no longer using a product in your eBinder we highly recommend you archive it and not delete it since deleting it would erase the record of the chemical name and information on when and where the product was used. See Archiving and Deleting Safety Data Sheets for more information.
