Deionized water is then distributed to the laboratories through an independent piping system. The Safety Office continues to refine the hazardous waste pro-gram in order to ensure compliance with applicable regulations and improve service to the campus community. Those of you who generate hazardous waste should be aware of a couple of recent changes. First, the hazardous waste tag has been revised to show a shaded gray area for Safety Office personnel to sign when they pick up the hazardous waste. Previously, it was unclear if researchers were to sign the tag themselves or if the Safety Office was to do it.
Regulations require the tag to be signed by a person who has completed specific documented training.
This procedure also allows us to make a determination at the time of pickup if there is a possibility of salvaging the waste for reuse. The second modification concerns the time requirements in the management of hazardous waste, commonly known as the sixty day rule . Currently, federal and state nvironmental regulations allow a business only ninety days to properly dispose of hazardous waste from the date of initial accumulation in a waste container. To ensure compliance with these regulations, the Safety Office schedules hazardous waste to be taken off campus every thirty days. This means that all containers will be taken out of the labs when they reach a sixty day period from initial accumulation.