Glass inventory for an on-site lab

Hello all, 

We have been discussing the need for a glass inventory for our on-site lab. Would it be considered a food handling/contact zone?  It is, obviously, not a production area and only samples of raw materials and finished products are being tested for our food safety program. The retains (4 oz.) are not taken back to production, but are stored in soft plastic bottles for one year. We do have a breakage form that must be filled out for anything that breaks, which 99% of the time is in the sink.  I'm just wondering if we need to resume the inventory of every single piece of glassware.  We already include the lights, etc. but would like to eliminate all of the glassware and feel secure in that decision.  I'm a fan of risk assessments and would prefer this over our chemist constantly counting glassware.

Thank you!

Jill

It feels like some level of risk assessment would be sensible.

Things to think about, how do people access the lab?  How do you bring new glassware in?  How does anything broken leave the area?  Is there a change of clothing when doing so?  Could you have some very clear rules and signage about glassware "zoning"?  Even better is it completely physically segregated or could it be with separate ingress and egress?  I think once you establish risk and whether you can reduce that risk it will become obvious what controls are suitable and whether you can do this or whether you can do it with some physical and flow changes.

Depends where exactly the lab is located. Ours is a small area in an office, away from production. If production zone can be accessed (entry and exit) without going through lab, you should be ok not listing glass items in it.