| Overall Rating | Gold - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 69.67 |
| Liaison | Julie Newman |
| Submission Date | Sept. 30, 2021 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
OP-20: Hazardous Waste Management
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
1.00 / 1.00 |
MIT
Office of Sustainability Director Office of Sustainability |
"---"
indicates that no data was submitted for this field
Part 1. Hazardous waste minimization and disposal
Yes
A brief description of steps taken to reduce hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:
MIT’s Hazardous Waste Minimization Team works closely with MIT's hazardous waste vendor and campus researchers to identify waste minimization and pollution prevention efforts for the Institute. The Waste Minimization Program’s current initiatives include:
- Chemical inventory using ChemTracker
- Consolidation of hazardous waste
- Cylinder disposal
- Ethidium bromide substitution
- Glass recycling
- Improved waste stream determination (includes chemical sharps & unknowns)
- Mercury free bubblers
- Mercury thermometer exchange program
- Silver recovery
- Solvent recycling
- Virgin chemical redistribution.
These initiatives allow the Hazardous Waste Team to divert materials for recycling, recovery, or reuse. MIT's Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) Office also encourages researchers to work with the Hazardous Waste Team and the EHS Office to identify additional strategies to reduce waste and improve MIT's environmental stewardship.
- Chemical inventory using ChemTracker
- Consolidation of hazardous waste
- Cylinder disposal
- Ethidium bromide substitution
- Glass recycling
- Improved waste stream determination (includes chemical sharps & unknowns)
- Mercury free bubblers
- Mercury thermometer exchange program
- Silver recovery
- Solvent recycling
- Virgin chemical redistribution.
These initiatives allow the Hazardous Waste Team to divert materials for recycling, recovery, or reuse. MIT's Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) Office also encourages researchers to work with the Hazardous Waste Team and the EHS Office to identify additional strategies to reduce waste and improve MIT's environmental stewardship.
A brief description of how the institution safely disposes of hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:
Waste is collected across campus by MIT's hazardous waste vendor, who is specially trained to handle these substances. Once collected, hazardous wastes are delivered to a "main accumulation area" on campus where they can be stored for 90 or 180 days. The waste is consolidated and bulked for shipment to a Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facility where it will ultimately be destroyed. Some of MIT’s waste is burned for energy reclamation, and some is incinerated. The Environmental Management Program (EMP) staff continues to research new disposal methods for MIT waste.
To prevent the spread of hazardous substances from e-waste, MIT Facilities picks up and disposes of CPUs, monitors, printers, fax machines, and other electronics and their components for free. Through MIT's TechnoCycle program, trash related to daily-use technologies (such as small electronics, cell phones, PDAs, pagers, floppy disks, CDs and CD cases, zip disks, audio and video tapes, external drives, cables and wires, keyboards, mice, and toner and inkjet cartridges) are collected in distributed mail centers throughout campus. Batteries are collected at all distributed mail centers and residence halls.
To prevent the spread of hazardous substances from e-waste, MIT Facilities picks up and disposes of CPUs, monitors, printers, fax machines, and other electronics and their components for free. Through MIT's TechnoCycle program, trash related to daily-use technologies (such as small electronics, cell phones, PDAs, pagers, floppy disks, CDs and CD cases, zip disks, audio and video tapes, external drives, cables and wires, keyboards, mice, and toner and inkjet cartridges) are collected in distributed mail centers throughout campus. Batteries are collected at all distributed mail centers and residence halls.
A brief description of any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years, including volume, impact and response/remediation:
On the MIT Cambridge campus, there have not been any significant hazardous materials releases in the past three years to report. While the boundary for this MIT 2020 STARS reporting is the MIT Cambridge, transparently, MIT notes that a lab wastewater release higher than regulatory limits occured at the Bates Engineering Facility located in Middleton, MA. The Bates release has been remediated and systems are in place to prevent this type of future release.
A brief description of any inventory system employed by the institution to facilitate the reuse or redistribution of laboratory chemicals:
Virgin chemicals that are no longer needed in one lab may be used by another lab on campus. MIT's Hazardous Waste Management Team and Environment, Health & Safety Office facilitates the reuse of chemicals. All labs maintain chemical inventories; it is recommended that labs use an online chemical inventory platform, e.g. BIOVIA CISPro Cloud. This online system allows for chemical sharing between labs. During laboratory clean outs, unused chemicals that are useful to others are identified and redistributed by the EHS Office and the Hazardous Waste Team.
Part 2. Electronic waste diversion
Yes
Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish electronic waste generated by students?:
Yes
If yes to either of the above, provide:
Most Distributed Mail Centers (building mail rooms) and residence halls provide drop boxes for e-waste (TechnoCycle).
http://web.mit.edu/facilities/Recycling_Stations_DMCs.pdf
The recycling office also collects broken or obsolete electronics using an online request form that is submitted through Atlas. The collected electronics are recycled by an e-waste processing company. If computer equipment owned by MIT isn't needed by anyone at the Institute, it can be sold via the Property Office. The MIT department that owned the equipment receives 90 percent of the selling price and the other 10 percent goes to the Property Office as an administrative fee. Departments also have the option of donating computers to non-profits. MIT's Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) offers a reuse program that collects electronic products that are still in good working condition (mostly laptops and desktops) and resells them.
http://web.mit.edu/facilities/Recycling_Stations_DMCs.pdf
The recycling office also collects broken or obsolete electronics using an online request form that is submitted through Atlas. The collected electronics are recycled by an e-waste processing company. If computer equipment owned by MIT isn't needed by anyone at the Institute, it can be sold via the Property Office. The MIT department that owned the equipment receives 90 percent of the selling price and the other 10 percent goes to the Property Office as an administrative fee. Departments also have the option of donating computers to non-profits. MIT's Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) offers a reuse program that collects electronic products that are still in good working condition (mostly laptops and desktops) and resells them.
Is the institution’s electronic waste recycler certified under the e-Stewards and/or Responsible Recycling (R2) standards?:
Yes
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.