Learning from Reactive Chemicals Incidents at Dow

Chemical facilities and laboratories typically handle and store hundreds of different chemicals. Many of these chemicals are flammable, toxic, reactive or otherwise hazardous. Often, chemicals require specific conditions to handle or store them safely or have maximum shelf life requirements. Knowledge of the properties and hazards of the chemicals in the facility is key to prevent incidents. Most companies have developed a Process Safety program to identify these hazards and implement layers of protection to prevent incidents. But despite all these efforts, incidents still happen. When accidents do happen, it is important to investigate which layers of protection failed, to prevent the event from happening again and to share the learnings within the company - or even within the chemical industry. This paper discusses Dow's Reactive Chemicals Program and how learnings from incidents are distributed within the company and describes two Reactive Chemicals incidents that occurred - and were shared - within Dow.