If you do, you are definitely the minority. Most of us don't, and because of that we expose ourselves to bodily harm and the institutions to costly lawsuits. This article will identify some of the major the environmental exposures associated with educational institutions and hopefully reveal the magnitude of the problem. The violations included storage of hazardous materials in open or damaged containers in areas where students worked, improperly labeling waste containers, and risking explosion by storing incompatible chemicals near each other. Though the school neither denied nor admitted wrongdoing in the settlement, it was an expensive lesson.
Educational institutions face many environmental exposures coming from a variety of sources.
Most prevalent are the disposal practices of the past. When you think about it, most research labs have historically disposed of waste in underground tanks or 55-gallon drums around campus. That's plenty of time for waste to accumulate in some forgotten corner of the campus. It is only as the university expands that the hazards are identified and the impact on the surrounding environment and reputation of the school surmised. Now, take this example and multiply it by 10, considering that many colleges and universities have a number of campuses.