6 Important Lab Safety Rules

When doing an experiment or research in a lab, your priority isn't just to get it over with. What's as important as being successful is staying safe in lab conditions. When in a lab, your mistakes could influence the experiment, the lab, you, and other people. Because of that, it’s important to do your best and protect yourself and others from any possible accidents by acting appropriately.

Always follow the instructions

The first and most important rule when it comes to lab safety is to always follow the instructions. It’s essential to pay attention and listen to the instructor or the supervisor. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough. If you fail to follow the instructions, you are endangering yourself and the others. Besides that, you could ruin your whole experiment or get suspended. You could even get fired.rnBesides all that, you could put the whole lab at risk. This could end up horribly both for people and for the equipment. To avoid all of these scenarios, you should pay attention to the instructions. They could come from an instructor, a supervisor, or they could be in the form of a procedure in a book. If you find something not clear enough or if you have some questions, make sure to get everything clarified. You should always get familiar with all the steps before you begin. Then, you’ll be sure that you’re doing everything properly.

Don't taste chemicals

You should never forget your surroundings. Acting immaturely in such a serious place can lead you to a lot of problems, most of which are extremely bad for your health. Because of that, you should never taste or sniff the chemicals. rnEven though people know how bad this is, they still tend to make mistakes. You may not even be aware of that, but smelling chemicals is enough for them to be deadly. If you don’t know what’s in a container, your first reflex shouldn’t be smelling it. Instead, you should make sure to always label the containers. You should do yourself a favour and develop this healthy habit of labelling the glassware before even adding the chemical.

Don't eat or drink in the laboratory

rnEating and drinking in a laboratory can be considered as very immature behaviour. This does make sense since there is too much risk of contaminating your food. It’s enough to just touch your food with fingers coated with chemicals and make it extremely unsafe for you. Not only food, drinks are bad for a lab too. For instance, you could spill your drink on your research.rnAnother reason why eating and drinking in a lab is not advisable is that both food and drink are forms of distraction. Also, if you get used to drinking in a lab, you may reach for the wrong liquid. This could end up fatally. Your lab should have enough high-quality lab equipment where you can separate the food from chemicals. Instead of bringing your food and drinks to the lab, you can store them in some other refrigerators. Some refrigerators that aren’t related to liquids or containers for the research would be ideal.

Dress for the lab

To be sure that you’re respecting all of the safety rules and regulations, you’ll have to dress properly for the lab. You may not realize the importance of this, but it is crucial. The reason why this is so important is that your clothing is one of the forms of protection. When it comes to lab accidents, no protection is sufficient. rnFor a lab, you should wear covered shoes and long pants. You shouldn’t forget the lab coat and safety goggles that are the main parts of the protective lab gear. If you have long hair, make sure to always keep it up or find ways to stop it from falling into your experiment. If you need more gear than the basics, you can always add gloves and other items of personal protective gear, suitable for the experiment.

Know what to do when the accident happens

In order to be sure that you are safe in a lab, you need to be prepared for all sorts of accidents. You should always do your best to keep the accident from happening. The sad truth is that accidents still happen, no matter how hard you try to prevent them. The good news is that most laboratories have a plan for such unplanned occurrences.rnThe first thing you should do if an accident occurs is to tell a supervisor what's happening. It's crucial not to lie about it or try to cover up some details. You may get cut, spill something or you could be exposed to a chemical. If you expect your supervisor to act appropriately for the situation, you'll have to be fully honest about the situation. If you get exposed to a certain chemical, you'll need the right care for it.

Be responsible

One of the key strategies to remain safe in a lab is to be as responsible as possible. For instance, you should leave the experiments at the lab. This is not only important for your safety, but for the safety of others too. It's enough to just spill a specimen, or even lose it, to have an accident. If you want to have a successful experiment or research, a lost specimen won't help you in that. The consequences could be much more serious if you start a fire or hurt someone. These are possible scenarios too if you don't leave the experiment at the lab.rnIf you want maximum safety, you shouldn’t have ideas such as experimenting on yourself. This would be very immature and you would abuse your position if you were to do something similar. Make sure to avoid doing this and stay safe in your lab.

Conclusion

rnIn order to be successful in your research, you’ll have to do much more than just the research. Staying safe should be equally important to you and you should do your best to conduct the research in the best possible conditions.