Lab safety overhaul could save NZ$3 billion, universities say

New Zealand’s decision to overhaul “nonsensical” laboratory health and safety rules could save taxpayers billions of dollars, universities say.

The Wellington government plans to reverse a 2017 regulatory change which required research laboratories to adopt the same safeguards as industrial plants that use huge amounts of hazardous materials for processes like commercial cleaning, pesticide manufacture and petrol refinery.

The minister for workplace relations and safety, Brooke van Velden, said the then government had intended to develop tailored regulations for research and teaching laboratories. But the plan never eventuated, ushering a “major pain point” for research institutions.

“Research laboratories have been bound by overly restrictive rules for nearly a decade,” van Velden said. “Not only are the current rules impractical. In some cases, they could end up making laboratory work more dangerous.”

She cited a requirement for labs to be situated on ground floors, potentially preventing upper floor workers from escaping if chemicals caught fire.

Another rule requires three metres’ separation between cabinets that store flammable materials. “Laboratories would need to be made significantly larger or the hazardous substances would need to be moved frequently from outside the laboratory, which increases handling risks,” van Velden explained in a newly published cabinet paper.

She said the regulations were suitable for operations that used a few types of hazardous substances in large quantities and employed workers with varied levels of expertise. Laboratory researchers tended to handle a variety of materials in much smaller doses, under expert supervision.

Many existing laboratories had been built long before the 2017 changes, van Velden said.

Universities New Zealand chair Neil Quigley said almost all of the country’s 2,000-plus public research laboratories were non-compliant with the 2017 rules. Retrofitting or rebuilding labs would cost between NZ$1.5 billion and NZ$3 billion (£654 million - £1.3 billion), with increased operating expenses.

“That cost would have ultimately been borne by taxpayers,” Quigley said. “Minister van Velden’s changes to the regulations are consistent with a continued focus on safety in our universities’ mostly bespoke and small-scale laboratories.”

The minister plans to allow research laboratories to develop their own risk management plans for handling hazardous substances, so long as they comply with a new industry-wide “approved code of practice” to be developed with sector input. Rules around the storage and handling of hazardous materials will also be relaxed, along with obligations on laboratory managers.

The proposals resemble the UK approach to hazardous substance regulation, van Welden told colleagues.

Cabinet’s Expenditure and Regulatory Review Committee has approved five changes to the 2017 regulations. The minister intends to present the amendments to the Cabinet Legislative Committee before the end of June, with the new rules to apply before year’s end.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com