University manages waste

By: Anthony Pereira  / Staff Writer

We should strive to understand as much about our school as possible, and one important issue we should know about is how what we do in the learning environment affects the natural environment.

How we educate ourselves on the steps that are being taken around us to take care of our environment is a great way to display this social consciousness.

A serious issue that our school deals with on a daily basis is hazardous waste.

Hazardous waste is the name given to certain substances that can cause large amounts of damage to the environment in even the smallest of doses.

These substances are perhaps the most important things in the school when pertaining to how they are disposed of.

Homes, businesses and schools all require cleaning, and if the school is large enough it will most likely require a certain amount of landscaping.
Cleaning products and landscaping alone require very hazardous products that can damage the environment if not looked after properly.

There are many laboratories which all deal directly with large amounts of different chemicals such as ammonia, EDTA, chlorine, and phosphate reagents.

According to planetagenda.com, when many of these chemicals are not disposed of in the proper manner, it  does harm to surrounding ecosystems.

What our school is doing to prevent these negative occurrences is working with the Interdepartmental Chemical Exchange Program.

This program was established through the Department of Environmental Health and Safety, and its sole purpose is to minimize chemical waste at the University.

Basically, what this program does is establish a network where different labs from different departments share information with each other on what specific chemicals they need and which ones they have an excess of or do not need.

Each department is required to keep an inventory and know how much of each chemical is needed and exactly how much would put them over the required amount.

What this does is ensure that chemicals do not go to waste, and it minimizes the amount of capital spent on these substances each year. It is a simple win-win situation for everyone.

The University is making sure to dispose of these chemicals after they have been used as safely as possible.

According to Environmental Labs Manager  Seema Sah,  the Environmental Health and Safety Department has established a team that goes in and collects the used chemicals, then gives the chemicals to independent contractors who dispose of the chemicals at their specific location.

Something that we might not be the most responsible about is the amount of chemicals that go into our local bodies of water via pesticides and fertilizers that we add to our grass.

While these chemicals are considered to be hazardous as well, there is not much of a safety net in place for them, as it is very difficult to tell just how much of these chemicals seep into our grounds.
A clear example of this is in the small pond just across from the northwest corner of the Owa Ehan building. Since there is no movement in that pond, chemicals from the pesticides and fertilizers allow for eutrophication and speeds up the growth of any plant life in the pond, sucking all the oxygen out with it.

This is a problem, and it is one that will not be easily solved, seen as how the natural alternatives, such as animal manure and composted food, often produce foul odors and would make walking around school a very unpleasant experience.

Our university, like any other, has its share of environmental issues to look after, and the key to those issues being moved forward is an understanding of how we are dealing with them, or not dealing with them. We have many improvements to make, like any other institution, but for now it seems we are on the right track.