Michigan Technological University
OP-20: Hazardous Waste Management

Hazardous - The rules applying to the disposal of wastes in the trash, down the sewer, into recycling, and managed as RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) wastes and nonRCRA wastes are outlined in the University's Safety Manual (Chapter 7 Environmental Protection) and the University's Hazardous Waste Collection and Disposal Procedures. Research Integrity (VPR), Environmental Health and Safety, Facilities Management, and Information Technology have various levels of involvement in selecting appropriate vendors for hazardous and non-hazardous waste disposal.

Universal - Michigan Tech has a campus wide program to recycle fluorescent bulbs, ballasts, and small batteries. IT also recycles larger LiIon batteries for campus-owned electronics

Chemical

Waste is generated from a number of waste streams. Michigan Tech's universal waste includes fluorescent bulbs, dry cell and recyclable batteries, mercury equipment, pesticides, and a small amount of pharmaceuticals. Michigan Tech has a small generator status, meaning we generate 1,000lbs of laboratory waste per month. These two types of wastes are hauled away by Drug & Lab Disposal Incorporated and Clean Harbors Waste Disposal Services. Other non-hazardous wastes, such as oil, brines, antifreeze, paints, other non RCRA, etc, are considered ecological hazards and are disposed of through alternative methods, rather then disposal into the landfill (i.e. oil waste hauler).

There have been no hazardous material release incidents that are considered reportable by EPA standards.

Michigan Tech uses MSDSonline for Safety Data Sheet management and is the de facto chemical inventory tool; some laboratories keep additional shadow spreadsheets of their chemical inventories. There is no formal process for facilitating chemical "reuse or redistribution" but laboratories are expected to check their inventory to see what they have before placing an order for a new chemical. In addition, University Chemical Stores, which orders all chemicals used in research labs, has established policies on ordering certain quantities of chemicals and/or chemicals that are particularly hazardous. Note that should an individual researcher only need a small amount of a specific chemical they can check the University's MSDSonline inventory. Some departments will take it on themselves to redistribute chemicals when a lab closes. Also note that the Chemistry Department tried to set up a formal redistribution program, but while many chemicals became quickly available, the demand to take them by individual researchers was minimal and Chemistry ended up getting stuck with a five figure disposal fee when cleaning out the room they were stored in.

For university-owned equipment, departments start the process by submitting a recycling request to IT. IT will then obtain any necessary permissions to dispose of the equipment, pick it up from the department, prepare the equipment for recycling (e.g. remove or erase any drives that contain university data), stage the equipment in our off-campus warehouse, and coordinate regular (~3 or 4/year) pickups with our e-waste recycling vendor. The only e-waste product that the University recycles for students is small, household batteries (AA, AAA, D, etc). There are several collection bins around campus where faculty, staff, or students can deposit used household batteries and when a bin is full, the batteries are taken by MTU Facilities to a local vendor for disposal.

American Recycling, our e-waste recycling vendor, is R2 certified. https://americanrecyclingne.com/our-story/certificates-affiliation/