Hazardous Waste Training
Coming to a Location Near You
By Kevin
Mouser
The Department
of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) has,
over the past few years, relayed tales of how
other major colleges and universities across the
nation have been issued significant fines and
penalties for chemical waste disposal violations.
While in some cases the facility in question’s
EHS program was found to be deficient in some
manner, many of the violations originate from
commonly overlook lab practices such as unlabeled
or open waste containers.
In a recent turn of events, members
from the IUPUI lab community have relayed similar
tales to EHS, relayed to them from research colleagues
at other institutions, confirming that both state
and federal regulators continue their focus on
the higher education community.
In an effort to ensure ongoing
compliance of proper chemical waste management
and to fulfill our mission of protecting human
health and the environment, EHS is developing
a comprehensive training program that will be
offered to each department on campus that has
in the past or routinely generates chemical wastes.
The program is anticipated to
one and one half hour in length and will cover
the key elements of properly handling chemical
and other commonly encountered wastes. EHS will
request that at least one person from each lab
on campus attend this session.
Additionally, the training session
will offer a short orientation segment involving
the transportation of chemicals. While your lab
may not routinely ship chemicals to off-site locations,
federal law requires that anyone involved in receiving
regulated chemicals have basic orientation training.
This includes anyone who would sign for a incoming
shipment of stock chemicals by a common carrier
such as UPS or Federal Express.
Please direct
your chemical waste disposal questions to Amanda
Stinnett at 278-3328 or Kevin
Mouser at 274-4351 and any transportation
question to Amanda, Kevin or Jim
Klenner (for biologicals) at 274-2830.
Click
here to continue to the online training program
