| Overall Rating | Silver |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 62.18 |
| Liaison | Jesse Carswell |
| Submission Date | Jan. 6, 2025 |
Southern New Hampshire University
OP-20: Hazardous Waste Management
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
0.50 / 1.00 |
Jesse
Carswell Sustainability Data Analyst Sustainability |
Part 1. Hazardous waste minimization and disposal
A brief description of steps taken to reduce hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:
Waste minimization and toxicity reduction are written into the University's Waste Management Plan. The Facilities department uses the most types and quantity of chemicals. Therefore, when Facilities have to use chemical products, they are mindful of only purchasing the quantities needed to reduce future disposal as well as choosing the least toxic option. Chemicals used by campus departments are minimal; departments who purchase chemicals are advised to purchase the smallest quantity to satisfy needs and to substitute with less toxic chemicals when possible. Additionally, the University is converting to LED lighting which is a more energy-efficient option for lighting and a less toxic version compared to the current use of fluorescent lighting.
A brief description of how the institution safely disposes of hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:
The University utilizes transporters and disposal/treatment facilities that comply with the applicable portions of the NHDES waste regulation, Env HW 400-800, which details the safe management during generation, transport, and disposal.
A brief description of any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years, including volume, impact and response/remediation:
There have not been any hazardous material releases in the past 3 years.
A brief description of any inventory system employed by the institution to facilitate the reuse or redistribution of laboratory chemicals:
N/A: The University currently does not have an inventory system designed to facilitate the re-use or redistribution of laboratory chemicals. The University currently has only one chemical laboratory and one bio laboratory.
Part 2. Electronic waste diversion
Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish electronic waste generated by students?:
If yes to either of the above, provide:
E-waste for faculty staff is collected through the ITS department while e-waste for students is primary collected through the move out campaign, Good Stuff.
Aurum has several different avenues for recycling materials. There is a dedicated team of techs that are entirely focused on refurbishing and reselling various electronics that come in. This is a significant portion of the operation and includes staff dedicated to managing inventory as well as packaging and shipping sold items.
Materials determined not to have enough value to be resold will go into one of various scrap recycling streams. Warehouse staff will disassemble some items – a good example of this would be desktop computers and servers. These items are taken apart and the various pieces go into several categories. Motherboards will go into our circuit board scrap, RAM will be removed and added to a higher-grade circuit board scrap, and CPUs will go into their own category. Power supplies, as do hard drives or disc drives, go into their own categories. Some items are not disassembled, and they go into scrap categories as-is. An excellent example of this is office phones/VOIP phones – these go into their own category, which is just phones. Scrap categories become commodities that can be resold to various partners in bulk amounts.
There are recycling categories for clean plastic, cardboard, and paper. Only materials that can’t go into one of the recycling categories will end up in the trash – it is avoided as best as possible to accept materials that cannot be recycled.
Is the institution’s electronic waste recycler certified under the e-Stewards and/or Responsible Recycling (R2) standards?:
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
Information provided by Pam Campbell, Safety Program Manager
Information provided by Michele Laboccetta, ITS Asset Analyst
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.