How to Read an MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet)

What happens if a toddler decides to taste the ink in a printer cartridge? The MSDS knows . Many consumable products such as cleaners and printer cartridges have an MSDS, or material safety data sheet. In more and more cases today, this information is available from the manufacturer's Web site on the Internet.

The MSDS can be used to

• Determine safe storage practice

• Determine treatment if the product is accidentally swallowed or contacts the skin

• Determine safe disposal methods

• Determine how to deal with spills, fire, and other hazards

The MSDS is divided into sections 1 through 16. For example, to determine first-aid measures in case of ingestion or inhalation, you would view section 4; to view fire-fighting information, go to section 5 (see Figure 13.1).

Figure 13.1. A portion of an MSDS for a typical HP laser printer toner cartridge, viewed with Adobe Acrobat.

For easy reading, many manufacturers use the Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format; documents in this format can be read by anyone with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader program, obtainable from www.adobe.com.