Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.52
Liaison Ruairi O'Mahony
Submission Date Aug. 10, 2016
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

University of Massachusetts Lowell
OP-21: Hazardous Waste Management

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Glenn MacDonald
Executive Director of Environmental & Emergency Management
Environmental & Emergency Management
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1 

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:
UMass Lowell has a rigorous hazardous and universal waste management program in place and works very hard to reduce hazardous, universal and special waste.

A brief description of how the institution safely disposes of hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:
UMass Lowell has programs in place to comply with MassDEP and US EPA regulations. Triumvirate conducts weekly inspections of satellite accumulation areas. For more info: http://www.uml.edu/EEM/EHS/Waste-Disposal-Programs/Chemical-Waste.aspx.

A brief description of any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years, including volume, impact and response/remediation:
No, there were not any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years.

A brief description of any inventory system employed by the institution to facilitate the reuse or redistribution of laboratory chemicals:
The Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Department operates a Hazardous Materials Chemical Receiving Stockroom for all laboratory chemicals on campus. Faculty and staff use a requisition and purchase order Software called Buyways for ordering all chemicals. EHS staff review and approval these requests. Upon approval a purchase order is created and dispatched to the chemical distributor. Materials are shipped to the Hazardous Materials Chemical Receiving Stockroom and received by EHS staff. EHS staff collect information and enter it into an on-line database called Vertere. Each material is assigned a bar code and tag. The materials are then delivered to the labs by EHS staff. During the process of reviewing faculty and staff chemical requisitions our EHS staff cross references the Vertere on-line chemical inventory to promote re-use of unwanted or excess chemicals on campus. EHS also acquires chemicals during lab clean-outs. These materials are offered for re-use during the review of chemical requisitions when someone is trying to purchase a material that is on hand.

Part 2 

Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish 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

If yes to either of the above, provide:

A brief description of the electronic waste recycling program(s), including information about how electronic waste generated by the institution and/or students is recycled:
UMass Lowell has collection bins throughout university for cell phone & handheld devices; electronics picked up regularly; hard drives collected, degaussed and platter destroyed and scrap to recycling company

Is the institution’s electronic waste recycler certified under the e-Stewards and/or Responsible Recycling (R2) standards?:
Yes

Optional Fields 

Electronic waste recycled or otherwise diverted from the landfill or incinerator during the most recent year for which data is available during the previous three years:
---

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
Chemical waste programs can be found at this site: http://www.uml.edu/EEM/EHS/Waste-Disposal-Programs/default.aspx

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.