Hazardous Waste Minimization
Incorporate these steps when starting a project where hazardous materials will be used:
When designing your experiment, activity or project:
- Micro-scale whenever possible, to reduce amount of hazardous materials used
- Substitute less hazardous materials where possible (i.e., latex for oil-based paint, biodegradable cleaner for solvent)
- Include bench-top neutralization as part of experimental protocol, where possible
- Consider recycling, re-use or reclamation of hazardous materials as part of your work; contact EH&S for assistance
- Eliminate arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium or silver
When obtaining your chemicals:
- Check your inventory first, to see if you have the material already
- Contact EH&S to use the campus inventory to locate and borrow chemicals for first time or one time use
- Purchase the smallest quantity of chemicals needed; the cost savings when buying larger quantities is lost if disposal costs are added for unused material
- Investigate the possibility of returning of unneeded and unopened material to the supplier
When handling or storing your chemicals:
- Store chemicals properly; poor storage may allow a chemical to deteriorate, become unstable, to leak or to spill, increasing the amount of waste and cost of disposal
- Segregate waste materials properly; mixing of waste types (such as chlorinated wastes and PCBs) increases the amount of waste and the cost of disposal
- Check your chemical inventory regularly; use older material before newer to prevent an expiration date from passing before the item can be used
- Ensure that containers are in good condition and properly labeled; damaged containers and unknowns are expensive and difficult to dispose of.