Chemical Storage and Handling: Which Victorian Rules Apply to You
Storing chemicals at work? First, know which set of rules applies to you.
In Victoria, the chemicals on your premises are governed by two separate laws at once — one for the harm they do to health, one for the harm they do through fire, explosion or corrosion. Most employers don’t realise a single drum can sit under both. This is the starting point: what each law asks of you, and where the line for specialist help sits.
Two laws, sorted by the kind of harm
The fastest way to make sense of chemical compliance in Victoria is to stop thinking about the chemical and start thinking about the harm. The law splits on exactly that line.
Hazardous Substances
Substances that can harm health — classified under the GHS health-hazard criteria. Think solvents, acids, silica, isocyanates. The duties are about exposure: knowing what’s on site, telling your people, controlling the risk.
Dangerous Goods
Substances and articles that cause immediate physical harm to people, property or the environment — classified under the ADG Code. Think flammable liquids, LPG, oxidisers. The duties are about containment, separation and emergency readiness.
A great many chemicals are both — a flammable, toxic solvent is a hazardous substance and a dangerous good. The two frameworks are designed to complement each other, not replace each other. Where a chemical is both, you carry the duties under both at the same time. The good news: the law lets you run them efficiently, which is what the next sections are about.
What sits on top of what
Five layers. The Acts set the broad duty; the regulations make it specific; the compliance codes show one accepted way to meet it.
- LAYER 01OHS Act 2004 · s.21The employer’s general duty to provide and maintain a safe working environment, so far as reasonably practicable.
- LAYER 02OHS Regulations 2017 · Chapter 4The specific hazardous-substance duties: SDS, labelling, register, control of risk.
- LAYER 03Dangerous Goods Act 1985The parallel duty for goods that harm by fire, explosion or corrosion.
- LAYER 04DG (Storage & Handling) Regulations 2022The occupier’s duties: hazard ID, risk control, spill containment, placarding, manifest, notification.
- LAYER 05WorkSafe Compliance CodesPractical guidance — not mandatory, but accepted as evidence of compliance.
Before anything else: identify, get the SDS, register
Identify what you hold
Walk the site. List every chemical stored or handled — including anything generated by a process. You can’t control what you haven’t named.
OHS Regs r155 · DG Regs r26Obtain a current SDS
Get the safety data sheet on or before the first time a chemical arrives — regardless of the amount — and keep it readily accessible to anyone who may be exposed.
OHS Regs r155–156 · DG Regs r54Keep a register
A list of every chemical with its SDS, kept where your people can reach it. For hazardous substances this is required whatever the quantity.
OHS Regs r162 · DG Regs r58Control the risk
Work the hierarchy: eliminate, then substitute, isolate or engineer, then administrative controls, then PPE last. PPE is the bottom rung, not the plan.
OHS Regs r163 · DG Regs r27If every dangerous good you hold is also a hazardous substance, you don’t need two registers. One combined register, prepared under the OHS Regulations, satisfies both. It’s the first efficiency most sites miss — and the first thing worth getting right.
Hold enough, and new duties switch on
For dangerous goods, the duties step up by quantity. Schedule 2 of the DG Regulations sets three separate thresholds for each class of goods. As you cross each one, another obligation begins. You read your own figures off Schedule 2 against your SDS — the structure is what matters here.
Placards go up
Cross the placarding quantity and you must display HAZCHEM outer warning placards at vehicle and rail entrances, plus class placards on the storage itself — so emergency services know what they’re walking into.
DG Regs r46 · r47A manifest is required
Cross the higher manifest quantity and you must keep a written manifest — quantities, classes, locations, site plan — in a weatherproof spot accessible to the fire service, usually by the front placard.
DG Regs r44 · r45You notify WorkSafe
Exceeding the manifest quantity also makes your goods “notifiable.” You must notify WorkSafe — within 3 business days — and have a written emergency plan in place.
DG Regs r64Fire protection design involves the fire authority
Cross the fire protection quantity and, before you establish or alter a fire protection system, you must request and have regard to the written advice of the fire authority (FRV or CFA) on its design. This is where fire engineering and emergency-services consultation formally enter.
DG Regs r52 · (general fire protection: r51)Placard relocation is allowed — but only in writing. Placards can sit somewhere other than the default position if you reach a written agreement with FRV or CFA and keep it on file. That agreement is exactly the kind of step worth coordinating early, not after an inspection.
The fire protection quantity is the clearest signal in the Regulations that you’ve moved beyond fundamentals: the law itself now expects fire-authority consultation, and with it fire-protection design, bunding sized to the storage, and often process-safety or hygiene input. That’s where the right specialist earns their keep. The job at this stage is knowing the line is there, getting the fundamentals straight, and bringing the right people in at the right moment rather than the expensive one.
Storage and handling — and where it stops
This hub covers storage and handling: chemicals at rest on your premises and the work done with them — conveying within the site, decanting, transferring, dispensing, disposing. Transport of dangerous goods by road or rail is a separate regime under the ADG Code, with its own duties and triggers. Different rules, different chain of responsibility. Where the two meet — goods arriving, being unloaded, then stored — is worth getting advice on rather than guessing.
Each topic below goes deeper than this hub can. They’re the practical questions that follow once the fundamentals are in place.
PPE for chemical storage & handling
Why protective equipment is the last control, not the first — and how your SDS and register should drive every PPE choice.
Read the guide → SPOKE · 02SDS, labelling & decanting
What a compliant label carries, how long a container must stay labelled, and exactly what a decanted or transferred container needs on it.
Coming soon → SPOKE · 03Segregation & incompatible goods
Keeping reactive chemicals apart — by distance or barrier — so two things that shouldn’t meet never do.
Coming soon → SPOKE · 04Spill response & bunding
Containing a leak before it leaves the premises — what spill containment and bunding actually have to achieve.
Coming soon → SPOKE · 05Placarding & manifest quantities
Reading Schedule 2 against your stock, getting placards right, and what a manifest must contain.
Coming soon →What employers actually ask
Does my chemical register depend on how much I store?
Do I need a safety data sheet even for small amounts?
What has to go on a container I’ve decanted into?
When do placards and a manifest become mandatory?
When do I have to notify WorkSafe?
If a chemical is both a hazardous substance and a dangerous good, do I do everything twice?
How is storage different from transport?
I’m a retailer — are my duties lighter?
Not sure which rules bite on your site?
Start with the fundamentals — what you hold, which laws apply, and where a specialist genuinely needs to step in. A 30-minute discussion is the quickest way to know where you stand.
Book a 30-min discussion