For those at the University of California, (Riverside, Davis, any others) do you really have undergraduates purchase their own lab coats and launder them themselves?
I went to UC Santa Cruz and we did not purchase our own coats, and the school had a coat service to clean them.
In industry you must provide PPE that is required for the job, it seems like that would apply to the students too, are they required to purchase their own safety glasses too?
Taking the lab coats home (or using the dorm) to launder them seems like a bad idea, one purpose of the coats is to protect the wearer from hazardous materials. If it is taken home, hazardous materials from the lab could be carried home to expose the user and others to the hazards.
I have worked places where we had to specifically tell people NOT to take coats home (because we had a service) when people were finding a coat that they thought was "special" and wanted to keep that same coat all the time.
Unless the chemistry lab has done a hazard analysis to determine "no chemical hazard" and the coats serve the same purpose as an apron for a chef, it seems like a risky way to do it.
Curious as to how this is actually implemented.
thanks,
dB
