Chemical Recycling for Higher Education
Posted on Wed, Jun 10, 2009 @ 02:46 PM
By Greg Rosinski, Environmental Specialist, RI
Waste minimization needs to become common day jargon within the higher education community. A common theme in higher education is the drive to expand the size of the school with a smaller budget. This approach is what I like to call "the little man budget crunch", whereby the department that is not seen as important as the National Championship football sports program are put on strict budgets. The department I am speaking of is the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) department.
A vast number of higher educations that Triumvirate Environmental Inc. (TEI), services are now asking for our expertise to implement waste minimization onsite. The theory behind this is that colleges/universities frequently have a faculty member retiring from multiple years of teaching with chemicals in a laboratory setting. As they retire a lot of chemicals are orphaned out usually for Hazardous Waste Disposal increasing the amount of money needed in the EHS department for disposal costs. Instead of deeming all unused chemicals as waste for disposal TEI utilizes are knowledge of chemicals to notify EHS of chemicals that can still serve a purpose. The EHS officer can then set up a program throughout the school where other laboratory managers can use chemicals that were going to be thrown out. The benefit of setting up a program like this has multiple benefits. The most important benefits are to lower the cost spent by the University for purchasing and disposing of chemicals.
According to the University of Illinois a simple way to help manage unused chemicals at schools is to use a company such as Triumvirate Environmental Inc. to perform chemical inventory. Performing chemical inventory will increase the awareness of good chemicals that can be reused on campus.
A common phrase by most of our grandparents to remember when supporting a chemical waste minimization program is "One person's trash is another person's treasure". Recycling chemicals at a campus helps to lower the environmental impact a campus has, and to move the campus towards becoming more "Green".