Diego is the current Safety Czar. Please direct questions to him.

General guidelines for waste disposal can be found on the flip-chart posted by the entrance to the 2P room. Please look here first for answers to questions about waste disposal.

If you want general guidance on what you can put down the sink, consult this.

Hazardous chemical waste should not go down the sink. If you are unsure whether something is hazardous chemical waste, please consult this or this. Note that hazardous chemical wastes include:

• any substance more acidic than pH 2 or more basic than pH 12.5
• any oils or greases at concentrations >300mg/L
• any petroleum hydrocarbons at concentrations >15mg/L (including paraffin oil)

Hazardous chemical waste should be accumulated in our “satellite accumulation area” (labeled bucket on the left rear of the fume hood). Different chemicals should be disposed of in independent streams (i.e., one plastic jar for each). There should only be one jar for any one substance at a time, and tops on jars should remain closed at all times. Each jar should contain an appropriate label indicating the substance and the hazard associated with it (i.e., flammable, toxic, etc). Do not date the tag until the day of scheduled pickup. You can request more empty jars, or labels, as well as request that a full or old jar be picked up here.

Two-photon laser coolant

Laser cooling fluid CoolFlow IGE which contains monoethylene glycol at 95% is considered a hazardous chemical waste. It should be collected in white jars, labeled (write the chemical components and check toxic), and stored in the SAA in the fume hood.

📎 Safety Data Sheet - CoolFlow IGE.pdf

Batteries should be discarded in the container for that purpose by the main entrance to the building, after having taped both ends of the battery. To discard lamp bulbs, if they are mercury and have visible liquid, they should be discarded through the SAA, putting them in a labeled Ziploc bag. Fluorescent bulbs or mercury lamps without visible liquid can be placed in a box and collected by facilities if you email them to ‘facilitiescallcenter@hms.harvard.edu’.

Sharps should be accumulated in red sharps bins. Bins are considered full when they are 3/4 full. We have two types of bins that need to be dealt with differently. The shorter, squatter boxes are disposable and should be placed in the gray biohazard bins outside the lab when full. The taller, thinner boxes are reusable. Place these on the floor outside the lab on Mondays; they will be emptied on Tuesdays and can be reused. There are additional reusable bins available in the cabinet under the fume hood.

Biological waste (old Drosophila cultures) should be disposed of in a red biohazard bag. Biohazard bags should be dated and placed in the cold room. Once they have been in the cold room for >2 weeks, at which point EH&S says the flies have all expired, old biohazard bags should be placed in the large grey biohazard bins in the hallway. Ensure the bin can close and lock shut, at which point they will then be picked up for disposal. Make sure to add a biohazard sticker to the bin if it does not have one (see https://www.ehs.harvard.edu/laboratory-labels-stickers). For extra red biohazard bags, call the custodial services supervisor at 617-432-2923.

TTX please refer to the TTX page /lab-citizenship-and-safety/ttx-tetrodotoxin-sopsds/