International Chemical Safety Cards (ICSC)
An international project
The International Programme on Chemical Safety is a work programme jointly supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Labour Office (ILO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).
One of its main goals is to elaborate and publish assessments of the risks to man and the environment from chemicals.
Within the framework of this programme a project for the elaboration of International Chemical Safety Cards (ICSC) is conducted in co-operation with the above international organizations, the European Commission (EU) and an international working group of scientific experts.
The elaboration of the safety cards includes an international evaluation by experts from the corresponding specialised scientific institutions.
The contents of the ICSC
The ICSCs sum up, in a generally comprehensible manner, the main health and safety related data on selected chemical substances. People responsible for safety at work and health and employees can obtain information here. The data are also intended to help an employer to fulfill his obligations about providing information and instructions to his employees.
The safety cards are initially prepared in English; approximately 1,100 are already available. At present, translation work is also underway. Varying numbers of translations are available or are under preparation in the following languages:
Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, and Urdu.
The ICSCs published in English can be obtained in print form from:
Office for Official Publications of the European Commission
2, rue Mercier
L-2985 Luxembourg
Fax +352 488573 or 486817
or from the Secretarial of the ICSC Project:
The Director
International Programme on Chemical Safety
World Health Organization
Avenue Appia
CH-1211 Geneva 27
