South Dakota State University
OP-25: Hazardous Waste Management

For laboratory type of hazardous materials, everyone who works with or works around hazardous materials are required to take a class offered by the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office. In addition, the Facilities and Services department handles their own waste, which is handled by a licensed vendor. All employees of both groups are trained in the proper disposal and how to reduce the amount of waste generated.

All employees that work with such materials are encouraged to only purchase the amount needed for the intended purpose and no more. Since the left over materials are an unwanted materials and must be disposed of, this greatly helps to reduce the amount of waste handled and the amount of hazardous materials that are generated when the intended purpose is finished.

All hazardous and other such wastes are managed by the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office. Once the EHS office is notified of the materials (including but not limited to: ballasts, fluorescent bulbs, used paint materials, laboratory chemicals, and used oils), the EHS office, or the General Services of the Facilities and Services Department, pick up the materials and they are inventoried and placed into storage at an on-site storage area where they are categorized by DOT codes. Once the inventorying and such procedures are finished, licensed/certified vendors pick up the materials for disposal. All such materials must be DOT manifested and the EHS office ensures that this is proper. Disposal bids must include the amount recycled and how the materials are disposed and all materials must have a “Certificate of Destruction” sent back to the EHS office for our records and evaluations.

Facilities and Services has a vendor (Safety Clean) pick up used glycol and other HVAC chemicals. Old window air conditioning units are sent to the landfill, where they extract the refrigerant inside. The heating plant sends empty chemical containers back to the vendor and disposes of other chemicals through Environmental Health and Safety.

Around 1,000 gallons of pool water were sent down the storm drain before it could be de-chlorinated. The South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) was contacted immediately. There was no major impact and no remediation was needed.

None currently.

All computer electronic components are picked up by the IT department and taken to the “Used Electronic Recycling Building” and separated by component and placed in Gaylord boxes. The Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office will pick up all other components and take them to the same storage shed. EHS then arranges pickup of such materials by a licensed recycler (Green Wave Computer Recycling).

Any batteries of the components (including backup system, etc.) are picked up by the EHS office or by the IT department and are placed in the above building with the subsequent disposal by the licensed and certified battery recycler (Interstate Batteries).

If a student takes their computer to the IT support desk to be fixed and it is found dead, IT will recycle the computer. However, there is no e-waste recycling programs for students who are disposing of their electronics on their own.

E-waste recyclers must be certified by either e-Stewards or R2 standards, in addition, all vendors must enclose environmental practices documentation when submitting a proposal to the EHS office. Proper protection (PPE) is always available and all workers that deal with the materials are trained to use them. In the electronic waste building, machine filters and large amounts of air ventilation is required to be used at all time. It is the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office policy, that in addition, no one person may work with the materials for more than 4 hours a day.