Re: Waste Disposal at Universities

[David Scherer <scherer@uiuc.edu>]

At 04:17 PM 6/19/96 -0500, Kent wrote:

>1.  At your facility, does the RSO pay for disposal and charge the
researcher prorata  
>based on volume generated?
>
The RSO pays for disposal.  If labs are abandoned by departing faculty
members, the department pays for decontamination and associated costs.

>3.  At your facility, is waste disposal a part of the RSO budget?
>
>    a.  How does one encourage waste minimization?
>
Include waste generation/minimization issues in the approval process.

>    b.  Does this encourage researchers to put expensive waste stream materials
>        (e.g., chemical waste) that they are charged for into radioactive waste
>        resulting in mixed waste?
>
No.  We have a blanket prohibition on mixed waste (other than LSC cocktail,
which we incinerate).  Some researchers have used and/or generated mixed
waste, but the source of the material must agree to take back the resultant
mixture.

>4.  At your facility, does the RSO collect a surcharge for the purchase of
long lived 
>radioactive wastes as a mechanism to collect waste disposal costs? 
>
No.  Funding for waste disposal is the University administration's problem;
not the researchers' and not the RSO's.  I assume they charge for it in the
indirect (overhead) costs.  We are fortunate to have a rather large facility
for storing/decaying/processing waste, a boiler plant permitted to blend LSC
cocktail with their fuel, and an incinerator permitted for carcasses and
C-14/H-3 trash.  Your space and facilities are probably more limited in
Philadelphia.

>These are the things that they don't teach you in your "Introduction to
Health Physics" 
>course.
Nope.  And they don't let me decide them around here, either.  I just tell
them when we're gonna run out of space, etc.  I dunno, I guess the isotope
work would shut down when that day gets here.

Dave Scherer
scherer@uiuc.edu