[ RadSafe ] Removing 14C contaminated biowaste from a BSL-3 Facility

[Jan John]

Dear Anthony,
You might consider consulting the recent IAEA TECDOC 1579 (downloadable
from the IAEA web) for the practices developed in South Africa.
Regards,
Jan John

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of Anthony Santoro
Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 6:03 PM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Removing 14C contaminated biowaste from a BSL-3
Facility


Dear Radsafe members,

 

I am looking for information on how others process BSL-3 solid waste
(gloves, paper towels, pipettes, etc.) that is contaminated with
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and a long lived isotope such as 14C or 3H.
Normally, TB waste is autoclaved prior to removal from the BSL-3
facility
but I am concerned that autoclaving mixed waste will result in
radioactive
contamination of the autoclave.     

With short lived isotopes, we simply allow the radioactive material to
decay
in the BSL-3 and then proceed with autoclaving.  With long lived
isotope/TB
waste I am at a loss as to how to process the waste for safe removal
from
the BSL-3 and ultimate disposal as LLRW.   Any thoughts or insights
would be
greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you,

Anthony Santoro

Radiation Safety Officer

Chemical Waste Manager

Laboratory Safety & Environmental Health

The Rockefeller University 

1230 York Avenue

New York, NY 10065

1-212-327-8226

 

 

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