A new environmentally friendly initiative has not only cut the amount of hazardous waste generated annually at the University of Houston, but it also has decreased disposal cost by 50 percent.

The project has saved UH $40,000 yearly and reduced the amount of hazardous substances, including lead-acid batteries and waste oil, on campus by five tons each year.

“The University of Houston is a large research institution and home to several important research facilities. Applying the three R’s of environmentalism — reducing, reusing and recycling — to research and operations will lessen contamination of our environment and have a positive impact on our economy,” said John Rudley, vice president of administration and finance.

Rudley credited the resourcefulness of the Department of Environmental Health and Risk Management (EHRM) staff with the project’s success.

The department was challenged with developing a more efficient and cost-effective way to properly discard 20 tons of hazardous waste that the university produces annually, according to Robert Schneller, EHRM director.

So in the fall of 2004, Schneller and his staff began addressing the issue.

“We started with brainstorming, trying to think of as many different strategies as we could,” Schneller said. “We visited other higher education institutions, including the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and discussed their strategies and our ideas.”

The department then reviewed the cost and benefits of various strategies and selected a three-prong approach with an emphasis on recycling. In April, EHRM launched its waste minimization project, which calls for recycling waste oil and lead-acid batteries and modifying disposal methods.

“Rather than discarding chemicals in absorbent material packaging, they are combined and removed with compatible chemical waste. As a result, the university is disposing drums full of the chemical waste, not packaging materials,” Schneller said.

Additionally, the department collaborated with the School of Art to incorporate a treatment process in the university’s photography darkrooms. The process extracts silver from photographic fixer waste, removing the hazardous component of the waste that is then disposed of with no cost.

Although Schneller had to shuffle around a few staff job responsibilities and add 10 hours of labor per week to operate the program, he said the changes are worth it.

“We knew that there would be benefits, but the results are better than we thought especially for the time frame,” he said. “We plan to continue reviewing and improving the project.”

Francine Parker
fparker@central.uh.edu