Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
OP-T2-41: Chemical Reuse Inventory

Reuse of Laboratory items

At NAIT we operate both the hazardous waste disposal and
the Central Chemical Inventory system under the same umbrella to alleviate unnecessary disposal of chemicals and distribution of chemicals used in different areas. For example, at one point in time, the Electronics department ordered from our Central Chemical Inventory several bottles of iso-Propyl Alcohol. A few years later they decided that they did not require this chemical and submitted it for disposal. From the history of different users of chemicals from our Central Chemical Inventory system we identified another user of this chemical and re-directed this chemical for their use instead of sending it for waste.

In the Chemical Technology program the students make products in their Organic Lab and when they are finished we have to dispose these products as hazardous waste. In a different lab session they analyze products which we purchase. Instead of purchasing more chemicals we re-designed this lab to use the product they produced from their previous lab. We use halogenated solvents for extraction of clove oil from cloves and we recover and purify this solvent for future use and at the same time alleviate the need for disposal.

There is an informal network between industry and NAIT to
pass on unwanted laboratory materials (chemicals, glassware, equipment, etc). We in return do the same with our laboratory materials by passing unwanted items to other similar institutions (both secondary & post-secondary) who can utilize them.