Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 72.78
Liaison Brandon Trelstad
Submission Date April 30, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

Oregon State University
OP-25: Hazardous Waste Management

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Brandon Trelstad
Sustainability Coordinator
Sustainability Office
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have strategies in place to safely dispose of all hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste and seek to minimize the presence of these materials on campus?:
Yes

A brief description of steps taken to reduce hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:

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.


A brief description of how the institution safely disposes of hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:

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.


A brief description of any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years, including volume, impact and response/remediation:

None.


A brief description of any inventory system employed by the institution to facilitate the reuse or redistribution of laboratory chemicals:

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.


Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish all electronic waste generated by the institution?:
Yes

Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish electronic waste generated by students?:
Yes

A brief description of the electronic waste recycling program(s):

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


A brief description of steps taken to ensure that e-waste is recycled responsibly, workers’ basic safety is protected, and environmental standards are met:

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.


The website URL where information about the institution’s hazardous and electronic-waste recycling programs is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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