[Genetica-dbb] hazardous waste disposal

[Stefano Rovida]

Dear All,

together with Viola, Claudia and Annamaria (in cc), we are making a major
effort to collect all old, sometime almost prehistoric, reagents *not
anymore in use *that have accumulated in the Genetics & Microbiology
Building in the course of years and that need to be discarded. There are
very precise and strict safety rules for their storage, transport and final
disposal. Each discarded reagent must be classified based on its quantity,
packaging, danger, and requires to be accompanied by its safety data sheet.
Reagents have to be collected in blue 30 liter drums full of inert
material; not all reagents can be collected in the same drum. As you might
imagine, disposal is very expensive. We pay for each drum, for each bag of
inert material, and according to weight. Moreover, due to the large amount
of bottles, tanks, various types of containers (some of them without any
label!!!!) costs for this disposal are *levitating*. Thus, any inattention
and error in this disposal process cost additional money to the DBB, *and
we do not have money to waste*.
We kindly ask all research groups, from now on, for maximum cooperation in
checking their reagent stocks in order to avoid unnecessary purchases,
especially when such reagents are already available.
Please promptly report the presence of expired or otherwise unusable
reagents.
Even if unused, some reagents might still be useful to other groups, as has
recently occurred.
We also ask that all waste be labeled with as much information as possible
to help identify its level of hazard, since *any unknown substance* must be
analyzed by the disposal company—an *extremely costly process*.

Furthermore, all other internal rules for the preparation of alipak and
hazardous liquid tanks (code 070101; 070703; 070704) must be followed as
usual.

Thank you for your help.

Stefano, Viola, Claudia, Annamaria


-- 
Stefano Rovida
Biocrystallography Lab
Dept. of Biology and Biotechnologies
"Lazzaro Spallanzani"
University of Pavia
via Ferrata, 9
27100 PAVIA
Italy
tel. +39 (0)382-985572 - 5534

stefano.rovida a unipv.it
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