Converting production lines in response to COVID-19
Converting your business to produce vital medical supplies, protective equipment and paper products.
What you need to know
You should be aware of some key hazards if you’re planning to manufacture any of the following products:
- hand sanitiser
- hand wash
- cleaning products
- gloves
- personal protective equipment (PPE)
- eyewear
- paper products
- masks
A summary of Australian Standards is available to provide guidance on quality and safety.
The Code of practice for managing risks of hazardous chemicals in the workplace applies to all these products.
For hand sanitiser, read Manufacturing hand sanitiser.
For hand wash and cleaning products, you must also follow:
- Code of practice for the preparation of safety data sheets for hazardous chemicals
- Code of practice for labelling of workplace hazardous chemicals
When the nature of your work changes, there’s a greater risk of workplace incidents and manufacturing some of these products requires a high risk work licence.
Regardless which of these products you manufacture, make sure everyone is safe when using plant, machinery and forklifts.
Also, make sure your workers are given adequate information, instruction, training and supervision in new processes, and that materials, systems and equipment are appropriate.
Other safety issues to consider include:
- Managing hazards and risks
- Consultation@work
- Manual tasks and Code of practice for hazardous manual tasks
- At risk workers
- Noise and Code of practice for managing noise and preventing hearing loss at work
- Working at heights and Code of practice for working at heights
- Electrical work and Code of practice for managing electrical risks in the workplace
For help with safety issues relevant to your business, ask for a free advisory visit or call 13 10 50.
Amendments to Therapeutic Goods Administration Regulation
Due to COVID-19, temporary amendments have been made to the Therapeutic Goods Administration Regulation, such as:
- hand sanitiser, and antiseptic handwash or rub formulations, are excluded from the regulation
- all disinfectant applications in relation to COVID-19 to be expedited.
Contact TGA for more information.
PPE supplies portal
Businesses, industry associations, local governments, private healthcare providers and not-for-profit organisations that require personal protective equipment (PPE) are encouraged to use the PPE supplier list on the buy.nsw website to secure supplies needed for safe and robust operations in your local communities.
The list has over 900 suppliers who have indicated they can service PPE needs through business-to-business transactions.
Go to buy.nsw.gov.au
Last updated: 24 August 2020