Haverford College
OP-25: Hazardous Waste Management

There is no current policy to reduce these types of wastes.

All hazardous and non-regulated chemical waste is collected and stored in a waste storage room located in the Koshland Integrated Science Center room E – 011A. In accordance with EPA regulations regarding our generator status as a “Small Quantity Generator” all hazardous and non-regulated chemical waste is removed by a licensed hazardous waste disposal company at no more than 180 day intervals. Haverford College currently contracts with Clean Ventures, Camden, New Jersey or Disposal Consultant Services, Piscataway, New Jersey. The waste material is treated or disposed of by various methods. These methods include the following: fuel blending, neutralization, recycling and purification for re-use. Disposal by landfill is considered by Haverford College to be a last resort method of disposal. Universal wastes including batteries and mercury are removed from campus by Clean Ventures, Camden, New Jersey or Disposal Consultant Services, Piscataway, New Jersey. Haverford College recycles all types of batteries used on campus. In addition, a program has been implemented to accept personal batteries from students, staff, and faculty. Mercury is a very minimal waste stream on campus and is recycled or purified for reuse by the contractors mentioned above. All waste fluorescent tubes are collected by the Facilities Department and recycled/disposed of by Veolia Environmental Services, Port Washington, Wisconsin. Electronic wastes (other than computing equipment) is now collected for recycling by our hazardous waste contractor. This includes outdated laboratory electronics, televisions, phones and various other electronic waste.

On January 24, 2011, a leak was discovered in the oil supply piping for the Central Heating Plant boiler system. The heating oil entered the drainage sumps and storm water system before being discovered by Facilities' personnel. It was estimated that 50 gallons of oil had escaped before the leak was discovered. Absorbent booms prevented the oil from entering the creek. An emergency response contractor flushed and vacuumed all areas impacted by the oil including; sumps, storm water systems and the headwall area. All appropriate regulatory agencies were notified. There was no impact to the environment.

There is a chemical inventory system in the Koshland Integrated Science Center that tracks the chemicals used by the Departments of Biology and Chemistry. The inventory system is generally used to maintain an chemical inventory to comply with the EPA’s requirement of having an accurate and current inventory of all chemicals. The inventory system is used share chemicals within the Department of Chemistry or Biology to prevent excess inventories of similar or specialty chemicals. Occasionally, chemicals will be shared between Departments. There is no written policy that addresses this practice.

As old electronic equipment comes into the Instructional and Information Technology Services (IITS), it is inventoried and stored in a secured room. Periodically the electronics recycling company buys the equipment. If there is any residual value, equipment may be refurbished and resold once any data storage devices are destroyed. As part of the agreement, data drives are destroyed by grinding into dust, with the metal components sorted by metal type and recycled.

IITS staff are computing professionals with extensive experience in safely handling electronic equipment and those handling used equipment are trained on our electronics recycling process. The recycling process requires that firms doing the recycling are vetted for standards meeting rules established by the federal and state governments as well as in compliance with a zero landfill goal policy.

Contributing: Mark Sweeney, Safety Coordinator/Associate Director: Safety and Security. Steve Fabiani, Associate CIO IITS