Portland Community College
OP-21: Hazardous Waste Management

Portland Community College has a district wide sustainable purchasing policy through the college's Board of Directors. The policy reads as follows: "In accordance with the Oregon Community College Rules of Procurement member colleges are committed to the use and purchase of environmentally and socially responsible materials and products which are fiscally responsible, reduce resource consumption and waste, perform adequately and promote human health and well-being. Recognizing their regional economic role Colleges shall seek opportunities to educate, encourage, and influence their respective markets by utilizing, where feasible, products and services including new environmentally preferable products, reusable products, recycled content and recycled products." Staff members in departments that produce hazardous, non-hazardous, and universal waste receive annual hazardous waste training that covers best practices in reducing these waste streams. Additionally, Safety & Risk Services staff works with individual departments and through the laboratory chemical hygiene committees to implement less hazardous products and processes. Recycling or reclamation is used for universal waste lamps, batteries, petroleum oils, solvents, antifreeze, and silver bearing photographic fixer.

When PCC does generate hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste, then there is a strict collection and disposal process that must be followed. PCC has a specific department that handles all hazardous waste matters - the Safety and Risk Management services. All Facility Management Services staff that come in contact with any of the materials listed above, or may come in contact in the future, are given an extensive, all-day training called, "All Campus Locations: Facility Maintenance Services Department, Environmental, Hazardous, and Non-hazardous Waste Management Training (40 CFR 262.34(d)(5)(iii). Upon completion of the training, staff are able to properly identify, collect, store, label, and dispose of all institutionally-generated hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste. In order to ensure that all above waste is properly disposed or recycled after it is collected, PCC contracts with North West Environmental, an environmental consulting firm, to make sure that the waste is transported and disposed or recycled according to all local, state, and federal laws. Additionally, Safety & Risk Services staff conducts unannounced quarterly hazardous waste inspections of all College programs to review compliance with the hazardous, non-hazardous, and universal waste program.

N/A: No significant incidents.

Safety & Risk Services staff reviews all requests for disposal of laboratory chemicals for opportunities to reuse chemicals in other college laboratories or programs. There is no district-wide inventory program to facilitate reuse of laboratory chemicals because unlike colleges with research laboratories that have extensive chemical inventories and varied laboratory operations, there are few opportunities in a two year college teaching environment to reuse laboratory chemicals between teaching laboratories. The teaching laboratories are also encouraged to purchase chemicals in small quantities to prevent overstock situations.

- All institutionally-generated e-waste material is handle through our Central Distribution Service Department, Surplus Sales department. The Central Distribution staff are specifically trained to handle such electronic waste materials. E-waste is collected by the Central Distribution department on a by request basis through an internal surplus property request form. The equipment is then either re-used by other department through surplus requests, sold to the general public at auction if it is still in good operational condition, or properly recycling through local, conscientious Portland-based vendors such as Total Reclaim.