It is essential that an annual chemical stocktake is conducted to ensure the safety of all personnel and compliance with legislative requirements for the storage and use of chemicals. The role of the annual stocktake within the chemical management system is to ensure that:

• the register of Hazardous Substances and manifest of Dangerous Goods is accurate
• MSDS are current and available for all substances
• all substances are appropriately labelled
• substances are correctly stored and Dangerous Goods segregated
• products no longer in use are disposed of appropriately

The annual chemical stocktake should be a part of the chemical management system for each School or Section. It should be used in conjunction with Chem Alert and procedures provided by Safety and Health. Chem Alert allows stock inventories and storage incompatibility reports for chemical storage locations to be printed, and these can be checked against the physical holdings during the stocktake. If Chem Alert is being used the stocktake process should involve:

1. printing stock holding report and storage incompatibility report for the area being audited
2. check physical holdings against stock holding report 
3. check labelling and replace damaged or deficient labels using Chem Alert
4. check storage of chemicals (i.e. nothing in fume cupboards, etc)
5. correct any storage incompatibilities identified in the storage incompatibility report
6. dispose of chemicals no longer in use
7. update Chem Alert register to reflect physical holdings

If the stocktake is performed in this way it will ensure that:

• a current register of hazardous substances is available 
• a current manifest of dangerous goods is available
• current MSDS are available for all products
• all products are correctly labelled, stored and segregated.

A Stocktake form with instructions is available below.

The annual chemical stocktake should identify any products that are no longer in use or are too old or deteriated to be of future use. These products should be disposed of appropriately, or donated to an area that has use for them. This can be organised through contacting the Chemical Safety Officer.