Fifth Year Progress Report

The purpose of this Progress Report is to summarize environmental performance data and present results for the most recent twelve month period of the New England Universities’ Lab Project XL.

The following documents comprise the complete 2005 Report.

Introductory Letter from the Laboratory XL Coordinator

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Responses to Key Regulatory Questions Posed by EPA
For this year’s progress report, EPA New England posed six questions for which lessons learned from the Lab XL Project would be valuable and timely in informing the national rule-making for managing chemical waste in academic laboratories. Click on the question below to view the complete question and the responses of the universities.

Laboratory Environmental Management Plan
Training
Pollution Prevention
Labeling
Container Management
Laboratory Cleanouts


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Introduction to the Summary Scorecards for the Lab XL Project
Ralph Stuart, University of Vermont
Gail Hall, Boston College
Zehra Schneider Graham, University of Massachusetts Boston

Summary Scorecards for Lab XL Indicators
At this stage of implementation of their respective lab waste management systems, each university has either achieved, revised or continues to work on the original 1999 goals of this project. This year’s report presents the nine agreed-upon Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) in a “Balanced Scorecard,” which reflects the institution’s vision, strategy and efforts. These are organized according to the management system mantra “Plan, Do, Check, and Act.” In this manner, each institution illustrates its priorities for continual improvement and its perspective on the relationship of its management system to key elements of lab waste management. Click on the links below to view the institution’s scorecards, which vary in format and priorities.

Boston College	University of Massachusetts-Boston	University of Vermont

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Specific Campus Reports
The links below connect to the report from each pilot campus on its environmental performance as measured by the nine XL Environmental Performance Indicators.

Boston College	University of Massachusetts-Boston	University of Vermont

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Other Relevant Materials for Review
Click on the links below for further reading regarding the XL Project, the proposed rule for College and University Laboratories, and pollution prevention in laboratories

“EPA’s Proposed Rule for Colleges and University Laboratories” CSHEMA 2005, presented by Kristin Fitzgerald, U.S. EPA

Lab XL Inspection Scorecard

Environmental Awareness Survey

Past Year’s reports

General Description of the Laboratory XL Report and from EPA

"Laboratory Waste Minimization: Reflections" Peter C. Ashbrook and Todd A. Houts

Governing Green Laboratories: Differential responses to Legal Regulation
Susan S. Silbey, Department of Anthropology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Pollution Prevention in an Organic Chemistry Research Laboratory
By Robin Izzo Scott Environmental Health and Safety, Princeton University
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COMMENTS
We welcome your comments, thoughts and suggestions.

Specifically, we have a question for our peers managing hazardous waste programs in higher education:

Would you "opt-in" to a performance based rule for managing chemical waste in academic labs if the rule was sufficiently flexible?

Please send your thoughts on this question to the C2E2 LabXL Coordinator at