Procedures for Disposal of Unwanted Laboratory Material (ULM)

• Initial training occurs when an student/employee is new to the lab or when a professor/staff member is new to BYU
• Recurring training is required when there are changes in the lab, such as new research techniques that create a different type of waste

• Training LMS
• Laboratory SOP’s
• This procedural document

• Training all members of a lab in the specifics of what ULM is generated in the lab and how it should be managed
• Keeping a record of who was trained in what, and when the training was completed

• Understanding training and asking questions
• Knowing how to safely handle lab materials, including how to properly dispose of ULM
• Following the policies and procedures presented in training and in this document, "Procedures for Disposal of Unwanted Laboratory Material (ULM)"

• To determine if your ULM poses a significant risk requiring specialized management, contact Environmental Management at (801) 422-6395.
• To determine if drain disposal is an option, contact Environmental Management.
• Keep all containers of ULM closed at all times when they are not in use.
• Store ULM containers within the room in which the material is generated.

• Always maintain a neat and orderly workplace.
• Use secondary containment bins or trays to store your liquid ULM containers in.
• Store your ULM containers in a designated place and do not allow them to migrate to other rooms.
• Post signs that clearly state what should, or should not, be put in various containers. With a relatively high turnover of student employees in labs, posting signs that give specific instruction for disposal of the material your lab generates will prevent many common mistakes and ensure the safety of your employees and ours.
• Each lab member is responsible for understanding how to properly dispose of their specific materials. Contact Environmental Management with questions about how to properly handle your ULM.

The following federal regulations apply to chemical unwanted laboratory material generated in laboratories. Any violation of these regulations may result in significant fines and loss of federal grants.

• No more than 55 gallons total ULM may be stored in a laboratory. For acutely hazardous ULM, this limit is reduced to one quart for liquids and one kilogram (2.2 pounds) for solids. Contact Environmental Management at (801) 422-6395 if you have questions about whether your ULM is an acutely hazardous material. A material is considered acutely hazardous if it is unused, the sole active ingredient, and is listed with a P code from the EPA. You can check this EPA website to see P-listed chemicals. Empty containers that previously held acutely hazardous materials should be considered ULM and sent to Environmental Management, see sections on Glass, and Paper and Plastic.
• Containers must be closed at all times except when adding or removing material. "Closed" means that no material can evaporate out of the container and that no material would spill if the container were to tip over. The exceptions to this are when venting is necessary due to pressure buildup (be sure you have adequate ventilation for venting), or for proper operation of laboratory equipment (when the container is being used in line).
• The container must be labeled with a description of its contents, or, more conveniently, have a log sheet attached to it that lists the chemicals that have been added. This description must be in English and must include the chemical name. Chemical structures and/or formulas are not appropriate substitutes for their names. All components of the container must be listed legibly.
• Incompatible materials must be kept segregated (i.e. acids and bases, or oxidizers and organics). It is the responsibility of the PI to understand the compatibility/incompatibility of materials in their lab.
• The laboratory must be "under the control of the operator." This simply means that when nobody is in the lab the door must be locked.

• To schedule the pickup and replacement of a full container, visit https://riskapps.byu.edu/apps/pickuprequest/. Schedule a pickup when a container is 80% full. Do not overfill the containers! This causes them to leak, creating a safety concern. Overfilled containers will not be picked up.
• Contact Environmental Management at (801) 422-6395 if there are any questions.
• At the Environmental Management Building we consolidate most liquid chemical waste into one of three waste streams, Acid Aqueous, Base Aqueous, and Flammable/Organic Solvents. This is why we provide containers labeled according to those same waste streams (we are currently switching from Aqueous and Organic containers to Acid, Base, Flam). If you have questions about which waste stream your material is, call Environmental Management at 801-422-6395 or email haz_waste@byu.edu
• Do not put solid material into liquid specific containers, or liquid into the containers for solid material. For example, pipette tips or paper towels should not be placed into a container for liquids. For more information on solid ULM, see Paper and Plastic below.
• Materials from spill cleanups should be managed as unwanted laboratory material. Place all contaminated items (paper towels, gloves, etc.) into a resealable bag. Label the bag with the material that was cleaned up and mark it with the date. Also see section on Paper and Plastic below.
• Do not use red biohazard bags for chemical material. They are to be used for biohazardous material only. If you are not sure whether your material is biohazardous please contact Environmental Management (801) 422-6395.
• Available containers for chemical ULM are as follows: 5-gallon containers for liquid chemical materials, available in three varieties (Acid Aqueous, Base Aqueous, Flammable Solvents), and 5-gallon buckets for chemically contaminated solids. Sharps containers may be purchased from chemistry or biology stockrooms.
• Do not generate a mixed waste. See section on mixed wastes below.

• Environmental Management will not dispose of liquid biohazardous material. This material may be autoclaved (see autoclaving guidelines below) or disinfected with bleach (add 10% bleach and allow to sit for 30 minutes) and flushed down the drain with copious amounts of water.
• Blood should not to be put into yellow biological ULM containers. It should be treated as a liquid biohazardous material. We recommend adding 10% bleach and allowing the mixture to sit for 30 minutes before disposing down the drain. Each lab is responsible for properly disposing of their own blood waste.

Autoclaving is an effective way to sterilize biohazardous waste. The following regulations apply:

• The operator of the autoclave is required to be trained.
• Proof is required (temperature-sensitive tape or test material) that during the cycle the machine reached the necessary temperature and pressure to render material disinfected.
• A written log must be kept documenting time of day, date, amount and type of material, temperature, pressure, and duration.
• The details of these requirements can be found in the Utah State Administrative Code (UAC R315-316-5(4)).
• After sterilization, the material may be managed as noninfectious solid waste.

Before discarding autoclaved material, make sure that the red biohazard bag is not visible. Place the ULM in either an opaque plastic bag or in a cardboard box before discarding to the dumpster. Although disposal of autoclaved materials into the landfill is the appropriate method of disposal, landfill employees do not like to see red biohazard bags!

If you do not have access to an autoclave, Environmental Management will accept your low-risk biohazardous material for disposal.

• There may not be any liquids in the Biohazard containers, they are for solid material only.
• Biohazardous material must be packaged in either a red biohazard bag or a bag which is labeled as biohazardous and displays the international biohazard symbol.

• In order to minimize human exposure to biohazards, all bags must be contained in a bin provided by Environmental Management and tied off before pickup. The lid must be able to easily fit on the container so the containers can be transported safely. Hint: if you have to sit on the container to get the lid on, it is too full!

Animal remains or specimens must be frozen. Environmental Management will only pick up animal material such as carcasses, organs, or fruit flies in a frozen state. Please freeze animal remains even if they have been preserved, as they tend to still have strong odors and biohazardous waste may need to be stored at the Environmental Management Building for up to a week before it is shipped out. The hazardous waste team will pick up frozen material directly from your freezer. This material should never be placed in the yellow biohazard containers or left at room temperature.

Preserving solutions (such as formaldehyde) may not be flushed down the drain. Any specimen in a preservative must be removed from the solution and frozen, as described above. The preservative solution may then go to Environmental Management for hazardous waste disposal. See section on Chemical ULM Procedures.

Keep all sharp materials separate.

• "Sharps" include all needles, scalpels and razor blades, and must always be managed as biohazardous even if they were only used with chemicals.
• Glass may sometimes be managed as sharps, but usually it does not have to be. See the section on glass below for further information.
• Sharps must be placed in a puncture proof container specifically for sharps.
• Do not over-fill the container; it must be closed before we will pick it up. When a sharps container is full, it can be scheduled for picked up at https://riskapps.byu.edu/apps/hazwaste/containerlog.php.
• Available containers for biohazardous ULM are our 20 gallon yellow bins marked with biohazard warnings and lined with red biohazard bags. We do not provide sharps containers, they can be purchased at the Biology Stockroom or Chemistry Central Stockroom.

Unbroken empty containers (empty is defined as being emptied as much as practically possible and having less than 3% of the original volume) NOT contaminated with biohazardous material can be safely disposed of by placing them in an exterior building dumpster. Do not ever put glass (especially broken glass) into the regular trash containers. This has caused accidents where custodians have cut themselves while removing waste.

Broken glass that is NOT contaminated with biohazardous material should be placed in a secure cardboard box that is clearly marked "Broken Glass." Building Care can pick those up, or they can be dropped in an exterior building dumpster.

Glass that is contaminated with biohazardous material, broken or unbroken, such as microscope slides, should be placed in a commercial sharps container. These containers are available for purchase at the Biology Stockroom and Chemistry Central Stockrooms. Glass that is not in a sharps container will not be picked up.

Environmental Management will pick up mercury materials such as mercury spill clean-up kits and devices containing mercury. If a mercury containing device is broken, it should be securely contained in a resealable bag.

Most paper and plastic unwanted laboratory material generated in the laboratory may be disposed of in regular trash containers. In some cases, such as spill cleanups, towels saturated with solvents, or anything contaminated with heavy metals, it becomes necessary to dispose of these materials as unwanted laboratory material.

After cleaning up a spill:

• Do not place materials used to clean up the spill into containers of liquid ULM.
• Place them in containers designated for solid debris only. Use either a chemical solid ULM bucket or a yellow biohazardous bin depending on the type of contamination.
• If you clean up a spill and do not have a one of our designated Unwanted Solid Material buckets (or a biohazard bin in the case of biohazardous contamination), you may place the contaminated paper, plastic, gloves, absorbent clothes, etc. into a resealable bag or a bucket. Then mark the bag or bucket with the name of the material that was spilled and the date.

Broken glass and other sharps should be handled as explained in the section on glass above.

We offer 5-gallon buckets for unwanted solid material that may be requested if you are regularly generating solid ULM that is saturated with solvents or contaminated with heavy metals, and 20 gallon biohazard containers for biohazardous contaminated material.

If you are planning to create radioactive unwanted material in your laboratory, please call Environmental Management at (801) 422-6395. We will discuss with you on a case-by-case basis how best to handle your radioactive ULM.

For our purposes, mixed waste is considered any material that is:

• Hazardous and Radioactive
• Hazardous and Biohazardous
• Radioactive and Biohazardous

Disposal of these types of materials is extremely difficult and costly. This type of material MUST BE APPROVED with Environmental Management before any is generated. Laboratories generating mixed wastes will be responsible to pay for their disposal.

Environmental Management collects and recycles the following miscellaneous materials:

• Batteries
• Fluorescent lights
• Aerosol cans (empty or full)
• Ballasts
• Small gas cylinders (lecture size, 5 gallons or less) *Please try to use the complete content of the gas cylinder until it is empty, so the cylinder can be recycled. Disposal of gas cylinders that are not empty is costly.

Please detach these items from equipment that is to be discarded and contact Environmental Management for their disposal. There are other regulated wastes generated on campus that are typically managed by other entities (physical facilities, electronic surplus, etc.) These materials include computers and monitors, refrigerators, microwaves, pallets, and other equipment. We also do not accept household waste. Household waste is exempt from hazardous waste regulations and should not be brought to campus for disposal.