Preventing Contaminated Materials From Entering Laboratory Recycling (Gloves, Lab Plastics, etc.)
Hi everyone!
As lab plastic and conssumable recycling takes off in popularity (for good reason), one common issue I've come across is how to prevent contaminated conssumables from entering dedicated or general recycling streams.
For example, glove recycling is currently offered by multiple vendors but they all stipulate that no gloves contaminated with hazardous materials (i.e., chemics, biohazards, etc.) can be recycled. When I ask them to define what "contaminated" means, they tell you to talk to your own EHS department.
When I reach out to our own EHS department, they turn the responsibility back on the recycling vendor. Nobody has a standard for what "contaminated" is, and EHS will not endorse the program because of this.
Therefore, I was just wondering - if your facility recycles lab conssumables such as gloves, cenftrifuge tubes, pipette tips, etc. - what is your definition of contaminated? Is it based on any standards?
Thank you!
Hi Angie! Great question! When I was at Emory University the EH&S department would on a case-bycase basis develop an SOP for waste streams that did not already have one. For example, one group of labs at one school purchases only Kimberly-Clark gloves and therefore participates in the K-C recycling program (though the program is not generally endorsed by sustainability experts). The department worked with EH&S to develop the SOP for using two different color gloves depending on the procedure's use of EH&S defined hazardous materials. I will say that we also experienced the same runaround with glove companies not providing a definition and I know that many other institutions have this issue. I'd love to hear others weigh in.
Kelly