I'm beginning research on a presentation I will give at the Boston ACS national meeting on best practices in managing chemistry class lab wastes. We've had some confusing mixtures of materials presented to us as class waste, particularly this year when the once-a-decade snowstorm cancelled Wednesday and Thursday labs and threw the whole undergrad class lab schedule into turmoil. I'd be real interested in web references to good class labs waste handling procedures at the student and teaching assistant level. Additionally, war stories and lessons learned in managing class lab waste successfully would be appreciated. I'm hoping to develop a list of "best management practices" on this issue for presentation in Boston, although if anyone already know of such a list, I'd be glad to hear about that as well. I have reviewed Safety in Academic Laboratories and it has a nice summary of RCRA requirements in the faculty version, I'm interested in suggestions for more specific procedures, such as: - Should classes be provided with a separate waste container for each session of the same lab so that the likelihood of incorrectly mixing wastes is minimized, or is that more confusing than clarifying in terms of what goes where? - Are funnels a help in filling a container or do they cause more spills when they are overfilled? - What kind of training is provided to TA's in terms of helping them appreciate the importance of good class lab waste management? Thanks for any help. - Ralph Ralph Stuart, CIH Environmental Safety Manager University of Vermont Environmental Safety Facility 667 Spear St. Burlington, VT 05405 rstuart**At_Symbol_Here**uvm.edu fax: (802)656-5407
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