South Dakota State University
OP-21: Hazardous Waste Management

For laboratory type of hazardous materials, everyone who works with or works around hazardous materials (including radiation) are required to take a class offered by the Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) office. All employees that work with chemicals are encouraged to only purchase the amount needed for the intended purpose and no more. This helps minimize the amount of material that needs to be disposed of. The EHS office is always trying to advance the concept that all users of chemical and electronics materials are responsible for the effective management of the materials that are used in the operation of any facility. We do not have a specific program, but it is emphasized during laboratory visits and audits. The EHS office through its online inventory system is able, at times, to arrange for and exchange of materials between laboratories thus saving money, disposal costs and time for researchers and teaching laboratories.

All hazardous and other such wastes are managed by the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office. Once the EHS office is notified of the materials (including but not limited to: ballasts, fluorescent bulbs, used paint materials, laboratory chemicals, and used oils), the EHS office, or the General Services of the Facilities and Services Department, pick up the materials and they are inventoried and placed into storage at an on-site storage area where they are categorized by DOT codes. Once the inventorying and such procedures are finished, licensed/certified vendors pick up the materials for disposal. All such materials must be DOT manifested and the EHS office ensures that this is proper. Disposal bids must include the amount recycled and how the materials are disposed and all materials must have a “Certificate of Destruction” sent back to the EHS office for our records and evaluations. The EHS office collects all unwanted materials, stores and arrange for certified disposal vendors.All unwanted chemical materials are disposed by a certified chemical disposal/recycling companry. EHS operates the collection of such materials, organizes and arranges for the vendor. The university no long uses coal, thus no coal ash in managed. All materials are given to a certifed hazardous material vendor. As part of our conditions, no materials may leave the US and must be recycled if relevant to the waste.

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Environmental Health & Safety operates an online chemical and biological inventory system. This system is designed to track unwanted materials to individual laboratories and facilities.

Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) manages all electronic waste. All materials are collected and stored in a designated building on campus. Initially the IT department collects the materials to ensure all data is destroy. EHS then arranges for a vendor meeting EHS standards is then hired to recycle the materials. The materials are not allowed be exported and must be recycling in the US or Canada (with our permission). For student e-waste, any electronic materials can be dropped off at the EHS facility which will then be put into the universities electronic recycling program. Batteries are recycled by a company out of Volga; light bulbs of all kinds are shipped out, depends on vendor where they go, but MUST be recycled; all e-waste are recycled by a certified vendor. When handling e-waste on campus, proper protection (PPE) is always available and all workers that deal with the materials are trained to use them. In the electronic waste building, machine filters and large amounts of air ventilation is required to be used at all time. It is the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office policy, that in addition, no one person may work with the materials for more than 4 hours a day.