Hazard symbols

About hazard symbols

GHS stands for the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, developed by the United Nations to bring countries’ chemical rules into agreement. Its hazard pictograms are a black symbol on a white background, in a square set on its point with a red frame. There are nine, numbered GHS01 to GHS09, and each stands for a group of hazard classes, among them explosives, flammables, acute toxicity and hazards to the environment.

A label may carry several pictograms, but each only once, even when more than one of the product’s hazards calls for it.

Differences by country or standard

Countries adopt the GHS pictograms into their own rules. On US workplace labels, OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard uses eight of them and treats the Environment (GHS09) pictogram as optional. Great Britain’s rules use all nine. Canada’s WHMIS adds a pictogram of its own, for biohazardous infectious materials.

Not every hazard has a pictogram

Some hazard classes and categories need no pictogram at all, such as flammable liquids in category 4. The label and section 2 of the safety data sheet still carry the signal word and hazard statements for them.