LABORATORY WASTE MINIMIZATION

Implementing a comprehensive waste minimization program can benefit a laboratory organization in a number of ways. It may cut expanses by reducing waste treatment and disposal costs, raw material purchases, and also reduce environmental liabilities. There are various methods you can employ to minimize the generation of facility wastes. You may find some new ideas below on how to enhance your existing waste minimization program.

How to Start — Improving an Existing Laboratory

• Review all chemicals in stock for: outdated, off-spec, unneeded items and dispose properly.

• Organize shelves for proper chemical storage.

• Label and date all containers.

• Prepare or update chemical inventory (include location).

• Keep laboratory orderly and clean.

Review Laboratory Procedures

• Can less hazardous or non-hazardous reagents be used?

• Are there safer alternatives to highly toxic, reactive, carcinogenic or mutagenic materials?

• Review procedures annually to see if quantities of chemicals and/ or chemical waste can be reduced.

• Consider kinds and amounts of waste and how can they be reduced?

Establish Centralized Purchasing System

• One person reviews order for duplication.

• Check chemical recycling list from other laboratories.

• Order smallest quantity needed.

Evaluate Disposal Practices

• Is the waste hazardous?

• Is more segregation possible?

• Are wastes labeled properly with names and quantities?

The following is a brief description of chemicals to avoid when planning laboratory experiments for research (in order of priority).

• Eliminate or reduce the use of reactive chemicals, where possible, for both safety and hazardous waste reasons. If wastes from laboratory work are reactive, deactivate their reactive characteristic as part of the laboratory procedure.

• Eliminate or reduce the use of halogenated solvents, where possible. Many halogenated solvents are carcinogens or suspected carcinogens. If such solvents must be used, investigate redistillation to minimize disposal requirements.

• Reduce or eliminate the use of arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, and silver where possible. If silver must be used, recover for reclamation.

• Eliminate or reduce the use of oxidizers, where possible.

• Eliminate or reduce the use of non-halogenated flammable solvents, where possible. Try to find non-flammable, biodegradable substitutes. If such solvents must be used, investigate redistillation to minimize disposal requirements.

• Eliminate or reduce the use of highly toxic chemicals, where possible.

• Neutralize all corrosive solutions as part of the experiment. Waste acid or base may be neutralized to a pH between 6 and 9 and then disposed of down the drain.

Ways to reduce quantities of hazardous or toxic chemicals.

• Automation/ Instrumentation

• Purchase equipment that enables the use of procedures that produce less waste

• Scale down experiments producing hazardous waste wherever possible

• Conservation of Raw Materials

• When solvent is used for cleaning purposes, use spent solvent for initial cleaning and fresh solvent for final cleaning

• Perform work in batches

Reusing material (after processing, if needed) in original process or reclamation for use in other processes.

• Participate in the chemical recycling program (if don't have one, get it started)

• Examine your waste/ excess chemicals for other uses in your laboratory, other laboratories or areas

• Review list of pre-owned chemicals before purchasing chemicals

• Inform co-workers of recycled chemicals you can use

• Arrange to set up a locker or shelf of excess chemicals in a laboratory or stockroom in your department

• Evaluate the possibility of redistillation of waste solvents in your laboratory

• Evaluate other wastes for reclamation in your laboratory

• Recover silver, mercury, and other heavy metals

Rendering the products of a chemical process non-hazardous or reducing the volume of the hazardous material.

• Look into the possibility of including detoxification and/ or waste neutralization steps in laboratory experiments

• Deactivate highly reactive chemicals in the hood

• Only treat the material if it renders the waste non-hazardous or reduces its volume

Armour, M. A. , Hazardous Laboratory Chemicals Disposal Guide, CRC Press, Boco Raton, 1991, 464 pages.

Lunn, George, and Sansone, Eric, Destruction of Hazardous Chemicals in the Laboratory, Wiley-Interscience NY, NY 1990, 271 pages.

National Research Council, Prudent Practices for Disposal of Chemicals from Laboratories, National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Ave., Washington, DC 20418, 1983, 282 pages.