Waste Management Resources

Before you start working in the lab, you should make sure you are aware of the main safety procedures and best practice guidelines in place at UBC and, and in particular, at the BRC.

It’s important to be familiar with the different waste pathways, and also to know how to be conscious and avoid being wasteful (reuse as much as you can, without compromising your work of course), to minimize the impact we have on our planet. In particular, lab work is unfortunately extremely wasteful.

Some relevant information about laboratory waste management can be found here.

Information about waste reduction can be found in the UBC sustainability page.

It’s easy to get lost with so much information, so, we will provide you here with a few key points you should be familiar with within the BRC. For more information, please explore more thoroughly all the links above and below and/or reach out to your lab manager or the Labs network coordinator: natalia.bercovich@zoology.ubc.ca directly if you have further questions.

A good place to start if you can spare an hour is the course offered by UBC sustainability.

This course goes through everything you need to know, and directs you to the different sources of info too, so, it’s worth running through it and eventually come back to it whenever you need to.

Now we can focus specifically on BRC guidelines

UBC risk management provides us with double bagged buckets to dispose of clean glass, you will find those on the ground floor of the BRC, near the exit on the building (east facing, through room #150) loading bay area.

There is campus-wide sorting facility that can deal with a lot of the waste produced in the lab, you can join the effort by requesting specific bins to dispose of paper and many recyclable plastics amongst others, all the information in this link. 

In particular, 

Gloves

Soft Plastics & Styrofoam

BRC has a large cage for it, located just before the exit of the building towards the loading bay (room #150). Useful information regarding e-waste accepted items can be found in the link below. Be mindful and avoid bringing here your home items.

https://buildingoperations.ubc.ca/accountability/sustainability/zero-waste/e-waste/

We have a box for batteries collection on each floor of the BRC, please read instructions carefully before discarding your batteries. And please, be mindful, and only discard here research related batteries. Please, find alternative pathways for your personal ones.

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2019/08/Battery-Disposal.pdf

The first step is enrolling here:

https://hwis.srs.ubc.ca/wis/login.aspx

Taking this online 30 minutes course on Hazardous Waste Management will be extremely helpful too: https://wpl.ubc.ca/browse/srs/esc/courses/wpl-srs-hwmt

After that, you will be ready to dispose of your solid/liquid hazardous waste.

There is a lot of general information (see links below) about the different types of waste

Hazardous Waste Information Sheet

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2021/03/Sharps-Disposal.pdf

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2019/08/Aqueous-Waste-Disposal.pdf

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2020/02/Biohazardous-Waste-Disposal.pdf

• Human or animal cell cultures used in research 

• Live or attenuated vaccines 

• Plant viruses, bacteria and fungi 

• Stocks of specimens of micro-organisms including Bacteria, Viruses, Fungi, Parasites, Rickettsiae and Chlamydiae 

• Laboratory material that has come into contact with any of the above

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2019/05/Non-Indigenous-Species-Disposal.pdf

• Soils – all types 

• Single pass and re-circulating fresh and saltwater cooling or aquarium systems 

• Algae and plants 

• Terrestrials and aquatic plants and animals including those on baits, nets and sampling equipment 

• Cultured organisms, microorganisms, and plants 

• Cloned and genetically altered organisms – all types

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2021/12/Chemical-Waste-Disposal.pdf

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2022/08/NR-Waste-Disposal.pdf

• Waste contaminated with higher amounts of chemicals or cytotoxics – not classified as toxic dangerous goods, class 6.1 (e.g. contaminated plasticware) 

• Silica gel contaminated with solvents, trace organic chemicals or heavy metals (e.g. moisture indicators) 

• Ethidium bromide waste generated from gels (ethidium bromide is a health hazard/mutagen) 

• Solid waste contaminated with a significant amount (i.e. more notable amount that cannot be either quantified or reasonably removed/evaporated) of hazardous chemicals. 

• “Other” hazardous materials contamination, which needs to be specified and pre-approved in order to be disposed of as a repeated waste stream.

https://riskmanagement.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2022/02/Organic-Solvent-Disposal.pdf

• Non-halogenated solvents – organic solvents without halogens. 

• Halogenated solvents – organic solvents containing halogens (F, Cl, Br, or I).

Often in the lab you perform routine procedures that give place to liters and liters of solvent liquid waste. In that case, the UBC office of environmental services from safety and risk services, provides the following simple guidelines.

1. Collect your waste in either Halogenated or Non-halogenated separated containers
2. When full, transfer to the reusable containers offered by srs making sure no solids are present
3. Bring the full reusable container to the centralized waste storage location at the BRC (near loading bay, you need a key to access this room)
4. Attach a BLUE label to the container (label should contain your lab identification sticker with the generator barcode, plus a mark identifying the nature of the waste). Both label and barcode can be requested online through the srs site where your lab has to have an account: https://hwis.srs.ubc.ca/wis/login.aspx
5. Pick up an empty reusable container form the centralized waste storage location at the BRC and repeat

Note: if not containers are available, please email Bang Dang, from the  Environmental Services office: bang.dang@ubc.ca 

This is a picture of approved containers (5L and 20L) to discard this type of waste. In addition, they require a blue tag attached to them.

Often in the lab you perform routine procedures that give place to loads of solid waste. This includes lab solid waste contaminated with chemicals (1.5 ml tubes, tips, conic tubes, etc, contaminated with ethidium bromide or solvents; silica gel contaminated with solvents, solids contaminated with a significant amount of highly toxic chemicals, etc.).  In that case, you should follow these simple guidelines:

1- Collect in your lab (often under the fume hood) all the solids in a thick plastic bag, until you have reached a considerable amount

2- Double bag and put the bag inside a cardboard box. Attach a YELLOW tag to it (including your lab barcode generator)

3- Bring the properly packed box to the centralized waste storage location at the BRC (near the loading bay, you need a key to access this room).