HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT GUIDE
10.0 WHAT HAPPENS TO THE HAZARDOUS WASTE GENERATED?
10.1 Bulk Drums
10.0 WHAT HAPPENS TO THE HAZARDOUS WASTE GENERATED ON CAMPUS?
After a chemical waste has been generated, determined to be hazardous, and sent through the hazardous waste management program, there are 4 primary ways in which the waste is handled: bulk drums, lab pack drums, recycling/reclamation, and drain/trash disposal.
Certain categories of liquid chemicals can be bulked and combined into drums. Bulking waste (as opposed to lab packing) can result in significant cost savings for the University and ultimately your department. Bulking first involves segregating chemicals according to hazard class. Then a small amount of chemical from each container is mixed in a 1-gallon size container - to minimize any potential fire or explosions. If no reactions occur, then the rest of the chemical is poured into a 30- or 55-gallon drum. Accurately labeling chemicals helps to avoid potential reactions, fires, or explosions when chemicals are bulked. Examples of waste streams that may be bulked into separate drums are as follows:
- Flammable solvents (non-halogenated)
- Flammable solvents (halogenated)
- Acids
- Bases
- Aqueous waste (i.e., photochemical waste)
Chemicals that cannot be bulked are lab packed. Lab packing first involves segregating chemicals according to hazard class. Chemicals in the same hazard class are placed into various size drums (55-gallon is the most common), then a packing material, such as vermiculite, is added to prevent the containers from breaking during transportation.
Chemicals such as oil and silver from photographic fixer may be sent for recycling/reclamation. Photographic fixer may be collected and run through a filtration media to collect the silver. It is important to minimize the amount of other material that is mixed in with these items. The addition of chemicals or other solid waste to these items can result in the material being unable to be reclaimed and having to be disposed as hazardous waste instead.
Some chemicals are safe to dispose of via the sanitary sewer or normal trash. If solid chemicals that are received through the hazardous waste management program are determined to be nonhazardous and nonregulated, they are placed in containers that clearly identifies this and then disposed in the normal trash.
There are a variety of treatment/destruction methods that environmental companies use after they receive the waste generated on campus. Some wastes (bulk flammable liquid drums) are used as a secondary fuel source at cement kilns. Wastes such as acids/bases and oxidizers/reducers can be treated at a facility to render the waste nonhazardous. Most waste will be sent to a hazardous waste incinerator. Any resulting ash from the incineration process is stabilized and then placed into a hazardous waste landfill. While there are other methods that can be utilized, the hazardous waste generated at Binghamton University will generally be handled using the above technologies.
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