Waste Definitions
Hazardous Materials
What is Chemical or Biological Waste?
Chemical or Hazardous Waste
- Used Chemicals or mixtures:
- Solvents, salts, reagents, test kits, oils, fuels, cylinders, etc.
- Contaminated solid materials:
- Gloves, paper towels, filters, glass, syringes, needles, silica gel, etc.
- All chemicals that came into contact with the materials must be listed as trace on waste pickup requests.
- Expired or unusable chemicals or products:
- Includes pure product chemicals, reagents, cleaning products, paint, spray paint, epoxy, etc.
Biological Waste
- Category 1:
- Waste known, assumed or suspected of being infectious to humans, plants or animals and could cause harm if released into the environment.
- Infectious waste includes contaminated materials that have been exposed to human fluids, human cell lines or with biohazardous organisms (syringes, needles, blades, petri dishes, surgical wraps, culture tubes and blood vials).
- Requires treatment before disposal.
- Category 2:
- Waste with the general appearance of infectious or medical waste, but is not biohazardous.
- Also known as “look-alike” waste.
- Non-infected animal tissue, fluids, cell cultures, non-biohazardous used petri plates, syringes and animal blood-stained surgical items.
Contact
Environmental Health and Safety
hazwaste@purdue.edu
765-494-0121