Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 53.85
Liaison Ruairi O'Mahony
Submission Date May 1, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

University of Massachusetts Lowell
OP-25: Hazardous Waste Management

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Glenn MacDonald
Executive Director of Environmental & Emergency Management
Environmental & Emergency Management
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have strategies in place to safely dispose of all hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste and seek to minimize the presence of these materials on campus?:
Yes

A brief description of steps taken to reduce hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:

UMass Lowell has a rigorous hazardous and universal waste management program in place and works very hard to reduce hazardous, universal and special waste.


A brief description of how the institution safely disposes of hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:

UMass Lowell has programs in place to comply with MassDEP and US EPA regulations. Triumvirate conducts weekly inspections of satellite accumulation areas. For more info: http://www.uml.edu/EEM/EHS/Waste-Disposal-Programs/Chemical-Waste.aspx.


A brief description of any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years, including volume, impact and response/remediation:

No, there were not any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years.


A brief description of any inventory system employed by the institution to facilitate the reuse or redistribution of laboratory chemicals:

The Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Department operates a Hazardous Materials Chemical Receiving Stockroom for all laboratory chemicals on campus. Faculty and staff use a requisition and purchase order Software called Buyways for ordering all chemicals. EHS staff review and approval these requests. Upon approval a purchase order is created and dispatched to the chemical distributor. Materials are shipped to the Hazardous Materials Chemical Receiving Stockroom and received by EHS staff. EHS staff collect information and enter it into an on-line database called Vertere. Each material is assigned a bar code and tag. The materials are then delivered to the labs by EHS staff.

During the process of reviewing faculty and staff chemical requisitions our EHS staff cross references the Vertere on-line chemical inventory to promote re-use of unwanted or excess chemicals on campus. EHS also acquires chemicals during lab clean-outs. These materials are offered for re-use during the review of chemical requisitions when someone is trying to purchase a material that is on hand.


Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish all electronic waste generated by the institution?:
Yes

Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish electronic waste generated by students?:
Yes

A brief description of the electronic waste recycling program(s):

UMass Lowell has collection bins throughout university for cell phone & handheld devices; electronics picked up regularly; hard drives collected, degausssed and platter destroyed and scrap to recycling company


A brief description of steps taken to ensure that e-waste is recycled responsibly, workers’ basic safety is protected, and environmental standards are met:

Electronic waste is managed by e-Stewards certified recycler (ACB).


The website URL where information about the institution’s hazardous and electronic-waste recycling programs is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Chemical waste programs can be found at this site: http://www.uml.edu/EEM/EHS/Waste-Disposal-Programs/default.aspx


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