Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Chemical waste
Summary
Chemical waste is any excess, unused, or unwanted chemical, especially those that cause damage to human health or the environment. Chemical waste may be classified as hazardous waste, non-hazardous waste, universal waste, or household hazardous waste. Hazardous waste is material that displays one or more of the following four characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity. This information, along with chemical disposal requirements, is typically available on a chemical's Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). Radioactive waste requires special ways of handling and disposal due to its radioactive properties. Biohazardous waste, which may contain hazardous materials, is also handled differently.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prohibits disposing of certain materials down drains. Therefore, when hazardous chemical waste is generated in a laboratory setting, it is usually stored on-site in an appropriate waste carboy where it is later collected and disposed of by a specialist contractor in order to meet safety, health, and legislative requirements. Many universities' Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) divisions/departments serve this collection and oversight role.
Organic solvents and other organic waste is typically incinerated. Some chemical wastes are recycled, such as waste elemental mercury.
During packaging, chemical liquid waste containers are filled to no further than 75% capacity to allow for vapor expansion and to reduce potential spills which can occur from transporting or moving overfilled containers. Containers for chemical liquid waste are typically constructed from materials compatible with the hazardous waste being stored, such as inert materials like polypropylene (PP) or polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). These containers are also constructed of mechanically robust materials in order to minimize leakage during storage or transit.
In addition to the general packaging requirements mentioned above, precipitates, solids, and other non-fluid wastes are typically stored separately from liquid waste.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.