Lab XL Progress Report for 2004

University of Massachusetts Boston

Submitted August 15, 2005

Section 3: 2004 Lab-XL EPI Overview

Introduction

2004 was a challenging year for UMB EH&S. To start off the year, we were down one full-time staff member. In addition, we used to carry 2-3 part-time (20 hours/week) graduate assistants and in 2004 we only had one. The main focus of EH&S was to re-organize the office and add staff. Consequently, because of reduced staff, we were limited to being in more of a response mode than a proactive mode. In some areas, such as training, we were limited in what we could offer. We did however, maintain laboratory presence, hence our XL program remains strong. In May 2005, we were finally able to hire one full-time environmental technician and we anticipate hiring an additional EH&S technician by the 2005 Fall semester. Once that is accomplished, we will begin to rebuild and strengthen all of our programs including increasing the number of formal training sessions offered campus-wide. We also anticipate placing a large emphasis on re-inventory of all laboratory chemicals. We will start this campus-wide effort with an upgrade of our software and then rollout the program to departments through our intranet. We hope to have at a minimum one staff person per laboratory department participating in the inventory program.

EPI Overview

EPI #1: Annual Surveys of Hazardous Chemicals of Concern

Results to date:

The goal of the first EPI is to assure that outdated hazardous chemicals of concern are appropriately removed from laboratory shelves and disposed properly.

As stated previously, UMass Boston is required by the Boston Fire Department to maintain chemical inventories for all labs. Therefore, all laboratories (100%) have had a survey of Hazardous Chemicals of Concern (HCOCs) and updated these inventories. EH&S implemented a chemical bar code based tracking system on a lab-by-lab basis in 2001/2002. For each Principal investigator, the EH&S Office has taken the inventory from each laboratory and generated Operational Material Safety Data Sheets for each laboratory. In addition, each information package provided by EH&S to a laboratory includes the inventory list with HCOC’s marked and an explanation of HCOCs

Lessons learned:

The bar code system is currently operated by EH&S and provides only a snapshot in time of any single lab’s inventory.

We are on track to begin re-inventory of labs by September 2005 to verify that our existing tracking measures (e.g., purchasing records, PI updates, waste disposal) can be relied upon to provide accurate snapshots of chemical inventories. A re-inventory will allow us to determine how “accurate” our inventories are at a given time and may give us some information about movement of materials from one lab to another. The re-inventory will also allow more carefully evaluation trends in HCOCs on the shelf.

We believe that the computerized tracking system may enhance the ability of EH&S to identify potential pollution prevention and redistribution opportunities however, we have not investigated this to date. What we hope is that the trend overtime will be that there are fewer chemicals on the shelves in laboratories. This has been difficult to track overtime. We have noticed that laboratory clean-outs have been more frequent and we anticipate that there are fewer chemicals on the shelves but we do not have any real numbers to support that at this time.

We are in the process of upgrading our bar-coding software to allow on-line access to the UMB community. We hope to transfer some of the responsibilities to the researchers in terms of adding new materials. We also hope that this will provide more opportunities for redistribution among laboratories.

Our on-line searchable database for our Operational Material Safety Data Sheets, which allows lab workers in the Chemistry Department to access information on any chemical as needed. We need to spend some time formatting the data sheets for on-line viewing. We anticipate introducing this tool to all lab workers in the Spring 2006 semester.

EPI #2: Verification of HCOC Surveys

Results to date:

The second EPI measures the participation rate in the HCOC inventory effort. As stated above, with the bar-coding system in place, all HCOCs have been identified, and surveys have been conducted for all (100%) labs.

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EPI #3: Pollution Prevention Opportunity Assessments

EH&S continues to emphasize pollution prevention concepts during training and researchers are encouraged, during both waste pickups and lab inspections, to incorporate pollution prevention ideas such as product substitution, limited purchasing and waste minimization into their everyday work. The EH&S Office encourages researchers to examine pollution prevention opportunities at the time of experimental design and when they are developing their Standard Operating Procedures. After the experimental design process is in place, we remind them to purchase only what they need. Finally, we suggest that they determine whether a treatment method can be incorporated at the end of the experiment. As a relatively small university, we are able to remind and reinforce the P2 message with faculty, staff and graduate students during our many informal EH&S/researcher interactions.

We believe this approach is quite effective. In 2002/2003 we conducted a P2 survey of all UMB PIs. Results of that survey showed that 73%, nearly ¾ of all PIs had already downsized their experiments, substituted chemicals or changed their processes to use less toxic material in their experiments. The survey also showed that 25% of the PIs would look to another laboratory if they run out of a chemical.

In 2004, we embedded several P2 statements into our Annual Environmental Awareness Survey and asked respondents to rank the statements from 1-5 with 1 being “strongly agree “ to 5 being “strongly disagree”. The survey results were very encouraging and indicated that:

• 100% believed it was the lab workers responsibility to reduce their environmental impact.
• 40% believed they could produce 10% less waste.
• 95% believed scientists should find safer chemicals to use in experiments.
• 92% believed that it was their responsibility to make changes in order to produce less waste.

Similarly in 2005, we asked the same questions in our Annual Environmental Awareness Survey and found that:

• 96% believed it was the lab workers responsibility to reduce their environmental impact.

· 40% believed they could produce 10% less waste.

· 81% believed scientists should find safer chemicals to use in experiments.

• 77% believed that it was their responsibility to make changes in order to produce less waste.

EPI #4: Hazardous Materials Reuse and Redistribution

Results to date:

EH&S continues to evaluate laboratory wastes for reuse when these materials are collected from labs. EH&S maintains a list of excess chemicals and publishes them to the EH&S website. PIs or laboratory workers may request excess re-usable chemicals on the list and EH&S will deliver the material to their laboratory. If an excess chemical remains in the EH&S inventory for more than 2 years, the material will be disposed of. As in previous years, there have been few inquiries or requests for these excess stock materials. Chemicals were requested from EH&S and delivered to laboratories on only two or three occasions in 2004. Based on usage, EH&S will likely dispose of our current excess chemical stock (400+ chemicals) by the end of the summer. We hope to begin building a more useful collection of materials that can be used by laboratories.

Lessons learned:

We learned from previous years’ Pollution Prevention (P2) surveys that P2 is already occurring. PIs report that they have downsized their experiments, substituted chemicals or changed processes to decrease their use of toxic chemicals. These changes have occurred independent of EH&S efforts promoting a central chemical waste reuse program and measuring its success.

Clearly, EH&S cannot dictate how researchers do their work and an EH&S implemented P2 program will not be effective. However, a communication from EH&S to labs on a frequent basis may be of value in reminding researchers to think about P2.

EPI #5: Laboratory Waste Generation Rates

Results to date:

EPI #5 concerns the amount of laboratory waste generated. The data are presented in Figure 1 and Table 1. UMB’s hazardous waste generation increased slightly 1% from the previous year. In total however, we have maintained an approximate 25% reduction of hazardous waste since the beginning of the XL Pilot Program. We have also seen the reduction of certain highly hazardous wastes (e.g., organic peroxides, pyrophorics). It is impossible to determine whether these reductions are attributable to a better-managed program or these reductions simply reflect changes in research activities.

Figure 1. UMB Hazardous Waste Disposal 1999-2004.

Table 1. UMass Boston Laboratory Waste Generation (in lbs)
	Waste Stream	Calendar Year
		1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
	Labpack with poisons	192.83	335.57	1083.36	335.28	374.10	540.95
	Labpack with corrosives	1161.46	959.94	2165.53	1497.22	919.95	1238.94
	Labpack with acutely hazardous waste	31.48	2.00	16.78	8.39	18.78	8.85
	Labpack with misc. hazardous waste	739.57	819.62	31.00	6.00	151.96	450.00
	Labpack with organic peroxides	19.57	0.00	8.39	0.00	0.00	3.09
	Labpack with combustible material	11.68	0.00	1.00	14.00	2.00	3.25
	Labpack with pyrophorics	21.34	10.00	28.39	9.00	2.00	3.00
	Labpack with flammable liquids	2470.02	1168.39	1543.44	2010.64	1750.24	1393.06
	Labpack with flammable solids	11.70	33.39	15.39	65.57	29.00	257.00
	Labpack with oxidizers	148.48	121.75	225.10	303.42	52.39	153.64
	Compressed gases and aerosols	264.27	20.00	156.39	15.57	40.39	62.00