How to handle chemical waste including hazardous waste at CBH Campus Albanova

PROCEDURE
Decisionmaker: Head of School
Valid from:   7 October 2019
Changed from: 21 Ocotber 2021
Reference number: C-2019-0869
Responsible for review and questions: Infrastructure Manager

1. Purpose

This routine describes how to handle chemical and hazardous waste properly.

2. Scope

The routine covers all laboratories used by the School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology, and Health (CBH) at AlbaNova floor 1, floor 2 and floor 3.

3. Definitions

Residues of chemicals with a hazard labeling are classified as hazardous waste.

4. Responsibilities

• The Head of the School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology, and Health (CBH) is responsible for waste management and within the limits of their jurisdiction.
• The infrastructure manager provides guidance for the handling of laboratory waste and contributes to the waste routine review process.
• All employees working in labs are responsible for handling waste according to established routines and binding requirements. Employees working in labs are also responsible for transporting smaller fractions of hazardous waste to the correct room on floor 1 in Goods Delivery. Fractions larger than 10 l can still be placed in the environmental room.
• The purchaser for each department/division is responsible for ensuring availability of containers for hazardous waste. Labels are available at the Albanova goods delivery.
• Personnel from “Godsmottagningen”are responsible to transport hazardous waste from the environmental rooms to the pick-up room for SEKA (except smaller fractions).

5. Procedure

Routine for the collection of hazardous waste from environmental rooms

Personnel from “Godsmottagningen” will only collect the big waste boxes (cardboard with yellow or red stripes) and big containers with liquid waste (>10 L) that have labels with the correct information.

Any smaller containers with hazardous waste are not allowed to be placed on the carriage in the environmental room. If you generate any small amounts of hazardous waste, you will have to take it down to “Godsmottagningen” at floor 1 yourself. Those containers need complete “KTH Albanova Avfallsetikett” (figure 2) labels.

The Gods delivery staff can open the door to the hazardous waste storage room for you from 8-16.00 on working days.

Hazardous waste

• All material contaminated with chemicals hazardous to human health or the environment should be disposed of in containers marked “Riskavfall” (hazardous waste, figure 1).

• Boxes must have complete “KTH Albanova Avfallsetikett” (figure 2) labels.

• Do not overfill the box! It should be easy to close the lid.
• A hazardous waste box should be taken care of as soon as it is full or during cleaning days.
• For liquid chemical waste, emptied, cleaned glass bottles or plastic cans (Figure 3.) can be used. Organic, aqueous and allergenic solvents are separated from each other. The bottle/can must be labelled with the “KTH Albanova Avfallsetikett” (figure 2) where content, name and phone number should be clearly stated.

Sharp Objects

Sharp objects are disposed of in designated containers (figure 4). Do not overfill!

Biological waste

Biological waste is autoclaved and/or killed using Virkon or Jodopax before disposal as non-hazardous waste.

Glass waste

Glass objects are disposed of in containers marked “Glasavfall” (glass waste, figure 5).

Make sure the glass objects are free from hazardous material before disposing them. Do not overfill the box! It should be easy to close the lid.

Other waste

For waste categories other than those described above, the one producing the waste is responsible for providing detailed instructions of how to handle the waste and for labeling the waste with a “Hazardous waste label” (figure 2).

How to handle different antibiotics

Different antibiotics should be treated in different ways.

This is a quick guide:

*Vancomycin is the last known antibiotic which MRSA (Staphylococcus) is susceptible to and should be used only when there is no other alternative.

Procedure for antibiotics handled as hazardous waste

Some of the antibiotics cannot be destroyed in-house and therefore have to be treated as hazardous waste.

KTH has an agreement with SEKA, they collect all our hazardous waste. SEKA can help to provide suitable containers for antibiotics if none are available at your division (for example for large volumes of waste containing antibiotics).

Mark the container clearly with its content (use the SEKA label, figure 2) and leave it at “Godsmottagningen” at floor 1 where SEKA will pick it up.

Hazardous waste collection

Hazardous waste is collected by SEKA from the designated room at “Godsmottagningen” floor 1. At pick-up the personnel from SEKA is responsible for writing a Transportdokument”, the personnel at “Godsmottagningen” will sign the document. SEKA sends a copy of the “Transportdokument” to “Godsmottagningen” on arrival at SEKA, that copy will be archived at “Godsmottagningen”.

6. Attachments

No attachments.

8. Amendments