page_title: Eco funnel
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Eco funnel / Origin
caption_attribution_description: English: ECO Funnels attached to plastic waste bottles and a funnel adaptation that fits common industrial containers.
context_page_description: The ECO Funnel, also known as the "Safety Ecological Funnel", is a funnel intended to be affixed to a receptacle for liquid chemical waste. It is designed to reduce environmental contamination, in compliance with OSHA and EPA mandated safety protocols.
context_section_description: The ECO Funnel was first devised by Dr. Ron Najafi in 1996 while he was working at a facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. At that facility, complaints arose throughout the building of odorous fumes originating from the laboratory. This raised the alarm that contamination was not limited to the laboratory where chemical waste is stored, and an investigation was initiated. As a member of the company's Health and Safety Committee, Dr. Najafi conducted tests to determine the severity of emissions from waste bottles typically left unsealed beneath a fume hood. By marking the rapid decrease in waste bottle volume over a limited period, he was able to verify that significant amounts of potentially hazardous chemicals were evaporating into the surrounding environment.
  Once the source and severity of the situation had been confirmed, a need was recognized to improve standard practice for the safety of lab personnel and to bring laboratories into adherence with public safety protocol such as those outlined by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) or the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
  29 CFR 1910.1450:  “Avoidance of routine exposure: develop and encourage safe habits; avoid unnecessary exposure to chemicals by any route.”
  29 CFR 1910.1450:  “Indiscriminate disposal by pouring waste chemicals down the drain or adding them to mixed refuse for landfill burial is unacceptable. Hoods should not be used as a means of disposal for volatile chemicals.”
  40 CFR 264.173:  “A container holding hazardous waste must always be closed during storage except with it is necessary to add or remove waste.”
  40 CFR 264.175:  “The containment system must have sufficient capacity to contain 10% of the volume of containers or the volume of the largest container, whichever is greater...”
  29 CFR 1910.1450:  “Stockrooms/Storerooms: ...chemicals which are highly toxic or other chemicals whose containers have been opened should be in unbreakable secondary containers...
  Environmental regulations regarding waste containers were at this time becoming more rigorously enforced than previously, making the situation urgent. After researching available options, it became clear that no solution existed to the problem of effectively containing chemical waste evaporation aside from re-capping original waste containers after each use.   In response to his findings, Dr. Najafi created the ECO Funnel.
caption: ECO Funnel Family, OSHA and EPA Compliant Waste Management System, March 2013
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