By Cindy Granier
The Environmental Health & Life Safety’s hazardous waste team received the Rebecca Szwarc Group Award at the 2018 Staff Excellence Awards program.
The team includes Hazardous Waste Safety Specialists Ramon Cantu and Adam Jennings, Environmental Protection Officer John McNeely, and Emmett Sullivan, manager of Environmental, Occupational, Asbestos, Waste and Mitigation. The awards program was held Aug. 13.
The hazardous waste team is responsible for collecting regulated waste such as chemical, biohazardous and radioactive material from across the UH campus and taking it to an accumulation area or UH’s chemical facility prior to being removed by a licensed vendor.
This group has done an outstanding job in trying to batch their operations in order to keep up with the growing demand.
For example, in the biohazardous waste collection and transport area, the group altered the vendor pickup route to have the vendor stop at several buildings and gather waste from designated accumulation areas. This change eliminated the need for the hazardous waste team to make multiple trips to haul the waste from each building to a centralized accumulation area prior to the vendor coming and removing it from campus. This time savings can be used for other waste activities.
The team has also displayed initiative in making several improvements in work methods.
One was switching from traditional bags and cardboard boxes to bags and hard shell reusable containers to dispose of biohazardous waste. The hard shell containers are much more durable than cardboard and the lab users have almost universally welcomed the transition.
In addition, the team was able to secure a new contract based on a cost per pound per container rather than the cost per container for disposing of biohazardous waste. As a result, the disposal cost has dropped over the past two years.
The team also has delivered excellent customer service in terms of chemical waste management through the implementation of the Subpart K Laboratory waste for colleges/universities rules for campus labs starting this past January.
This rule allows lab users to identify any chemicals as “unwanted material” and request a waste pickup from their appropriate department. This rule more actively portrays how most colleges and universities handle chemical waste at their institutions.
One benefit of this new rule is labs no longer can store unwanted material until they reach the maximum storage quantities. They now have a six-month time limit. This is a great incentive to not accumulate excess chemicals in labs, which can lead to fire hazards and unexpected reactions as materials decay or become unstable.
The efficient and timely removal of chemical waste from laboratories directly contributes to student success by decreasing the potential hazards.
During the past years there have been some high profile cases of lab accidents across the United States. UH has seen one explosion in a fume hood and several incidents of fires and spills on campus over the past few years. Improved chemical waste procedures in the labs will help in preventing these situations.