Hazardous waste must be collected and processed according to guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). All University departments and teaching units, including the organic chemistry teaching laboratories, must comply with these regulations. The university’s Environmental Health and Safety Department (EH&S) works with the campus departments to train hazardous waste generators so that compliance is met. EH&S also collects properly tagged hazardous waste and ships it to appropriate disposal sites.
Topics covered on this page:
Two major tenets of the EH&S guidelines that pertain to the organic chemistry teaching labs are:
The Handbook for Organic Chemistry Lab includes a section on Waste Chemical Handling which details both the EH&S Guidelines and the ways in which these guidelines are implemented in the organic chemistry teaching labs. You can read more about the guidelines at the University of Colorado EH&S web site:
Since you are the one producing the chemical waste, it is up to you to dispose of the waste properly. We have made this as easy as possible for you, by pre-calculating compatibilities and contents of all the waste solutions you are likely to produce. All you have to do is:
Follow Directions!
All hazard chemical wastes are collected in the main hood of each lab room, an area that is a designated "Satellite Accumulation Area (SAA)". Place the waste as directed in the procedure section of each experiment in the Lab Manual. Waste receptacles include:
The system of waste tally (see below) will not work unless each and every student follows this quite simple and quite explicit rule, since the wastes are reported according to what is supposed to be in the carboys.
Waste rules:
Secondary Containment:
Each container of liquid waste must be placed in "secondary containment", which is a plastic tray/container which will hold the contents of the waste container if it breaks. Never take a waste container out of its secondary containment.
Miscellaneous:
Filter papers. A container is provided in each hood for wet filter papers. The papers do not harm the environment and can be placed in the regular trash once any solvent has evaporated from them. Do not place product in this container!!! The coordinator likes to assume that students have followed directions and placed the products in the recovery jar and not in the paper receptacle. Thus, the contents of the containers are placed into the trash cans. Please, do not allow lab chemicals to be placed in our local dumps.
Used drying agents. Drying agents such as sodium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, and calcium chloride are not harmful to the environment. They can be put in the regular trash as soon as any solvent has evaporated from them. Place them in the "Used Drying Agent" receptacle in the main hood. Do not place product in this receptacle, since it is emptied into the regular trash.
Pasteur pipets: Yes, these are intended to be disposable and are quite inexpensive. However, we often find them laying around the lab and in the trash receptacles full of chemicals, including strong acids. All trash receptacles in the lab, including broken clean glassware receptacles, are eventually emptied into the local dumps. You can easily rinse a Pasteur pipet and use it in a future experiment. If one breaks, you must rinse it before you can throw it into the broken clean glassware receptacle or into one of the containers labeled "used mp capillaries, microcaps, Pasteur pipets". If you are unable to clean it with the minimum amount of solvent, consult your TA or the lab coordinator.
Used TLC plates: A small plastic container labeled "used TLC plates" will be placed in the main hood when necessary.
Used TLC spotters: These go into one of the containers labeled "used mp capillaries, microcaps, Pasteur pipets". These tiny spotters are hard to see, but can become lodged in your skin like a splinter. Please, put them in the receptacle when done with them.
Used melting point capillaries: These go into one of the containers labeled "used mp capillaries, microcaps, Pasteur pipets".
In the past, almost every carboy in each hood obviously has had the wrong waste put in it: there are two layers when there should be one; an organic carboy contains acidic waste when it should be neutral. It only takes a few students putting the waste in the wrong container and the tally is incorrect. Then, the waste is shipped improperly, handled improperly. This will not affect you, the student, immediately, but years later it certainly will affect someone living on the planet. And, yet, it is so very simple just to follow the directions in the manual!
You, the student, can easily do your part in reducing the amount of waste produced by the organic chemistry labs. Minor changes in student habits and adherence to instructions can make a world of difference.
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While you cannot put chemicals down the drain, you should place as little waste as is necessary in the waste carboys:
The contents of the waste receptacles must be known and written down at all times. When full, the contents must be listed accurately and the carboy tagged and processed. The composition of the waste in the carboys is calculated assuming the students follow the directions given in the Wastes sections of each experiment in the Lab Manual. If just one student doesn't follow directions, the entire carboy will be miss-labeled and improperly processed by Environmental Health and Safety.
Here is how it works. Each laboratory has two large 5 gallon plastic carboys in the main hood. The carboy with blue tape is labeled "Hazardous Waste - Aqueous Waste" and the carboy with red tape is labeled "Hazardous Waste - Organic Waste". Note that there are marks in indelible ink on the side of each carboy. The highest mark indicates the last volume at which the contents of the carboy was "tallied".
Each week, a different experiment is carried out in the lab. Under each main hood is a tally sheet on a clipboard. This sheet lists in English the percentages of the components of the waste mixtures which the students produce in each experiment. There is a separate list for "Organic" and for "Aqueous". At the end of each experiment, the Coordinator checks the waste carboy and makes sure that it is capped, then marks the level with a Sharpie pen. A ruler is used to measure the distance between this new mark and the one just below it. Each inch corresponds to 1.6L; this volume is then written on the appropriate tally sheet (aqueous or organic).
The system only works if each student places the waste in the container as directed in the Lab Manual. This cannot be overstated.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets the basic guidelines which govern the protection of our environment, including the disposal of hazardous wastes. State, county, and municipality agencies also regulate the handling of hazardous chemical wastes in the geographical areas under their jurisdiction. Most universities establish Environmental Safety or Environmental Health and Safety departments. The personnel in these departments work with local and federal agencies to establish a safety policy individual to their institution. Thus, the best source for hazardous waste handling disposal information is at the university which you attend. The links below take you both to government agencies and sample University safety pages.
University Health and Safety pages:
