Report an accident or malfunction involving hazardous substances
If an accident or malfunction or cases of illness or death in connection with hazardous substances have occurred in your company, you must report this immediately.
You must report an accident or malfunction involving activities with hazardous substances immediately if it has resulted in serious damage to the health of at least one of your employees. You must also report cases of illness and death if there is a concrete suspicion that these were caused by working with hazardous substances. You must give precise details of the activity and state the risk assessment for the workplace.
If you have already reported the incident to another authority, you can submit a copy of the report.
Responsible department
The locally responsible regional councils for company premises on which at least one installation is present,
- which is subject to the EU Industrial Emissions Directive (installations labelled with the letter E in column d of Annex 1 of the 4th BImSchV),
- which is subject to authorisation in accordance with Section 60 (3) sentence 1 numbers 2 and 3 of the Water Resources Act (WHG) or
- which constitutes an operating area pursuant to Section 3 (5a) of the Federal Immission Control Act (BImSchG) (hazardous incident operation).
For all other business premises, responsibility lies
- the municipal administration if the premises are located in an urban district
- the district authority if the premises are located in a district.
Please ensure that you submit the notification to the authority responsible for your premises.
Details
Prerequisite
- An accident or operational disruption or cases of illness or death in connection with hazardous substances have occurred in your company.
- Serious damage to the health of at least one of your employees has occurred.
Procedure
After you have reported an accident or an operational disruption or cases of illness or death in connection with hazardous substances, the competent authority will examine the report and, if necessary, request additional documents.
You must provide the employee concerned or their representative with copies of the report.
Deadlines
The notification must be made immediately.
Required documents
The following information is required for the report:
- Accident location
- Date and time of the accident
- Details of the person(s) involved (surname, first name, date of birth, gender, employment, start and regular end of working hours, level of training)
- Nature of the incident
- Measures taken
- if applicable, details of persons involved (function, surname, first name, address details)
- Information on instructions and risk assessment
- If applicable, information on accident-relevant work equipment and accident-relevant hazardous substances
Costs
None
Miscellaneous
If the information required for the notification can be taken from equivalent notifications under other legal provisions, the notification obligation can also be fulfilled by sending copies of these notifications to the competent authority.
Legal basis
Verordnung zum Schutz vor Gefahrstoffen - Gefahrstoffverordnung (GefStoffV)
- § 18 Absatz 1 Unterrichtung der Behörde
Release note
machine generated, based on the German release by: Umweltministerium Baden-Württemberg, 22.08.2024