Oregon State University
OP-25: Hazardous Waste Management

Environmental Health and Safety at OSU encourages hazardous waste generators to reduce waste whenever possible. Specific reduction strategies include: Accurate labeling to prevent improper disposal of unknown hazardous material, combining flammable organic solvents for reuse as off-site fuel, separating halogenated solvents for solvent recovery, reusing/redistributing chemicals when materials come from unopened containers or partially used containers of high quality, neutralizing of chemical wastes which have corrosive properties, purchasing chemicals in a manner that does not exceed anticipated needs, and modifying procedures to reduce the hazard or amount of waste products or using less hazardous materials in procedures in general.

Environmental Health and Safety disposes of all hazardous waste in accordance with federal and state regulations. Federal regulations can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/wastes/laws-regs/regs-haz.htm Departments are encouraged to employ waste reduction procedures to limit costs and waste volumes. Prior to disposal of any hazardous chemical waste, OSU must perform an official hazardous waste determination to see if the waste is hazardous, and to what degree. Biological waste, cultures and stocks, pathological waste, and sharps are all considered hazardous and therefore are incinerated. All aerosol cans are considered hazardous waste until completely empty. The Facilities Services department has purchased several devices to open aerosol cans and drain contents, except for cans with pesticides or other highly toxic materials which should be treated with other hazardous wastes. Radioactive waste containers must have a record of materials in the container which is kept up-to-date. Radioactive waste is segregated by half-life and guidelines for storage and treatment of such waste (before disposal) is offered by the link provided below.

None.

Environmental Health and Safety at OSU makes available a chemical reuse inventory on their web page. These chemicals are available to departments for no charge.

As mentioned above, all university-owned electronics are required to be disposed of through Surplus Property to ensure proper handling of e-waste. Any salable items are sold through Surplus Property for an extended useful life off campus. Here is Computer Drive Connection's (CDC) description of how the company handles e-waste: Computer Drive Connection, Inc. is located in a 20,000 square foot building. They have an established sorting process for all equipment and materials. Obsolete computers and equipment are completely disassembled in our dismantling section. Reusable parts are remarketed while unremarketable parts are categorized by material type and sent to intermediate scrap facilities and refiners for destruction and reuse after refining. Data information is wiped or destroyed on all hard disk drives. CDC's list of items accepted for recycling: Computer Monitors/Computer Systems Hard Disk Drives/Floppy Disk Drives Printers/Typewriters CD Roms/Modems/Networking Devices Circuit Boards/Circuit Board Components Wire Mainframes Keyboards/Mice/Power Supplies Test Equipment/Point of Sale Equipment Aluminum Sheet/Cast or Unclean Telephone Equipment/ Cell Phones Radios/VCRs/Projectors Inkjet and Toner Cartridges

As of January 1, 2010, it became illegal to dispose of televisions, laptops, and computers (CPU’s and Monitors) in any landfill in Oregon. That includes any of these items discarded in any OSU dumpster, including those at resident halls. All university-owned electronics are required to be disposed of through Surplus Property to ensure proper handling of e-waste. Electronics are tested, and if working properly, made available for sale to the departments, government agencies, and the general public. Electronics that cannot be resold are sent to Computer Drive Connection, a reputable private company which recycles used computer parts. What they don't disassemble themselves onsite is sent on to an R2 certified e-waste recycler.