Australia's Science Forum

Hi everyone,

After looking at the recent Riskassess advice on disposal of chemical waste and in planning to pay for a collection early next year and starting again I thought i'd revisit our waste bottle setup.

From reading the Riskassess info and the CSIS package this is what I came up with. Are the seperate bottles for the individual metals overkill? What do other people have?

• Mixed heavy metal waste

• Cobalt

• copper

• lead

• silver

• zinc

• chromate & dichromate

• fluoride

+

• mixed organics

• mixed halogenated organics

Thanks,

We had individual bottles for silver, zinc, lead was our largest bottle. with labels on each bottle as to want to add etc.

We have mixed heavy metals and mixed organics .

Matt , is it cheaper to have separate bottles ?

Hi bigmack,

We have mixed bottles at the moment. I'm not sure if it's cheaper or more materials can be recycled? I might have to ask the waste company when they do the pickup next year.

We have just had 52 KG of waste removed at a cost of $753 ($9/kg)
The chemicals were all weighed in their bottles. My heavy metal wastes was all in together in 2 Winchesters
If it is in multiple glass bottles you will be paying for that glass. When I weighed an empty glass Winchester it was 440gms. 5 of those with only a couple of hundred mls in each would add up to close to $50.
A 500ml brown glass bottles weight approx. 340gms
All in together is obviously not ideal but cheaper for disposal and I had no problem with it like that

Hi, I just have a few questions.
Where is the disposal info on RiskAssess?
Which chromates/dichromates are you collecting? I can find info in CSIS that states it's okay to go down the drain. (Hard copy - possibly out of date).
Which copper compounds are you collecting? I use steel wool to displace the copper from copper sulfate solutions and then put the wool in the bin and the supernatant down the sink.
The only waste bottles I have are lead, silver and organics.
Sorry I have only questions and no answers for you.

Hi Marama T,

The riskassess disposal info is currently in the NEWS section at the bottom of the main page, although it says it'll be incorporated into other areas of the system in the future.

At the moment we have a mixed metal waste bottle and organics. The list above was made up from the riskassess info and CSIS. We may not need all of them. I was just interested in what others had.

I was wondering how people label their mixed organic waste bottles?

We have a separate bottle for each heavy metal here. The organics bottle is covered in labels for each chemical that goes in there, the fellow before me just used Chemwatch labels (I would use Riskassess ones myself)

Marama T wrote: ↑26 Nov 2019, 10:27 Hi, I just have a few questions.
Where is the disposal info on RiskAssess?
Which chromates/dichromates are you collecting? I can find info in CSIS that states it's okay to go down the drain. (Hard copy - possibly out of date).
Which copper compounds are you collecting? I use steel wool to displace the copper from copper sulfate solutions and then put the wool in the bin and the supernatant down the sink.
The only waste bottles I have are lead, silver and organics.
Sorry I have only questions and no answers for you.

The CSIS recommendations about what can go down the sink are based on Sydney Water allowances from some time in the dark ages of the 90s. Not sure what the electronic edition says as, being an independent school, we have no access to it. I would suggest either following Riskassess recommendations or contacting your local council to see what they have to say. I dare say, it will be very different to CSIS.

Merilyn
Thankfully the disposals bit of CSIS has been updated on the online version.
I saw an example of this at a recent Science Assistant training where we were asked to bring our old printed manuals and compared it against the online one . This bit at least has been updated .

I ended up posting a question on the Science Assist website and the science technician support officer called me back. Now I have a shipload of information!!! Well worth it, as I was about to chuck some zinc nitrate down the drain. This was okay according to my ancient copy of CSIS. I now know it needs to stored for collection and correct disposal

I've been doing a bit of research and it is best to keep the waste streams separate (i.e. don't mix the metals together) in order to facilitate decontamination. The best advice would come from the company picking up your waste. This is so interesting! I'm horrified at the stuff I was putting down the sink.

Hi all
Having just done my first ever chemical waste pick-up in the 15 years I have been here, I am now trying to be more conscientious with chemical disposal. I am following the advice on Science Assist. Does the wastes need to be stored in glass bottles or can some be in plastic? Where have you sourced winchester bottles from as my usual suppliers don't seem to have them.
Thanks for you help
Kathryn

I store all our waste in glass bottles. I bought Winchesters from Adelab in SA, the only place I could source them. Best to buy in packs of 6, but I can't remember the price and for some reason I can't access the website from work.

We've got bottles of 90% acetic acid and 36% hydrochloric acid that arrived from the supplier in plastic. I do not recall from Cert III in lab skills or my on-the-job training anything that was not to be stored in plastic. I'll put a question on science assist and get back to you. Haines have quite cheap one litre plastic storage bottles https://www.chemtalk.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=451/bottle-storag ... w-cap.html

We went with glass as they are heavier, therefore more stable and less likely to be knocked over. The waste bottles go into our senior Chemistry classes, it is not just me handling them.

I heard back from Teresa Gigengack at Science ASSIST and she said sodium hydroxide solutions need to be stored in chemical-resistant plastic. She wanted more details about particular chemicals I may have questions about, so put a post on the site if you need more information.

I was planning on having waste bottles for organics; inorganics (cobalt,copper, strontium); lead; nickel; chromium; zinc; silver.
The 2.5L Hdpe bottles chemicals come in are stable so I would not be too concerned about them tipping over if they can be used for waste storage, and if I can source them.
Previously we had our 2 waste bottles stored in the fume cupboard so they were not being moved around. But now with having so many, I am not sure where I will store them. They may have to go in the chemical storeroom which means all the waste from the students will have to come back to me.
The 2.5L Hdpe bottles chemicals come in are stable so I would not be too concerned about them tipping over.

LEAD WASTE 39

Add Sodium Carbonate solid, to waste, pour into
bottle, when clear down the sink to waste

A small Lead Salt will
Remain on the bottom




SILVER WASTE 43

Add Sodium Chloride solution any conc. to bottle, when settled clear can go down the sink to waste

A small Silver salt will
remain on the bottom
These may help others