Hazardous Waste Disposal

Hazardous Waste

It is important that hazardous waste generated at TRU and in the Faculty of Science is disposed of correctly. Please ensure all hazardous waste is labelled correctly (all components identified) and stored in the chemical storage unit. For additional information, please see Risk and Safety Services' Hazardous Waste Management page.

Chemical Waste

TRU disposes of hazardous chemical waste through a certified waste removal company twice a year, in the spring and winter. Waste pick-up is arranged through the Risk and Safety Services (RSS). Prior to pick-up all hazardous waste is to be organized, labelled, recorded in the Waste Tracking spreadsheet and moved to the chemical storage unit. RSS will send out an email reminder one month prior to pick-up for all departments to add their waste inventory to the spreadsheet. If you have waste that needs to be disposed of, please contact [email protected] to ensure you have access to the tracking sheet.

Biohazardous waste is disposed of in a couple of ways:

1. Sharps, including used medical tubing, scalpels, used medications, used glass medication jars etc. are disposed of through BIOMED Disposal. Department coordinators are to contact BIOMED for ordering and disposing of their sharps containers.
2. Biohazardous lab waste is to be collected in the red garbage bags in special bins. This waste is autoclaved on site and once decontaminated is safe to dispose of in regular waste. Any questions about decontamination are to be brought to the Microbiology Lab Tech or the Biosafety Officer (250-371-5807).
3. Dissection waste/animal carcasses (not contaminated with anything other than the solution the specimen was stored in) can be disposed of in the regular waste. However, all specimen/carcass waste is to be collected, double bagged, frozen and then brought to the landfill on a pre-arranged date and time. Once waste is collected and frozen, please put in an Archibus request for facilities to pick up the frozen waste. If you have questions about dissection waste, please contact [email protected].

If you have any questions about any waste generated, or items you need disposed of and are not sure if they can go in general waste, please contact [email protected] for any recycling specific questions, please contact [email protected].