Environmental Compliance
Hazardous Waste
All hazardous waste generated in Stanford laboratories must be labeled with a hazardous waste tag. The waste tag website can be used to create/edit waste tags and request containers for pickup. The Stanford waste pickup team comes to the Chemistry department once a week to remove full waste containers and, if requested, provide replacement containers.
Chemical Inventory
Stanford University has a regulatory obligation to report the amount and locations of hazardous chemicals on campus to local governments. To compile this information, Stanford University uses the ChemTracker system to maintain chemical inventories. The chemistry-ehs [at] lists.stanford.edu (EH&S Research Safety Specialist) is available for ChemTracker training and troubleshooting.
Wastewater Compliance
To protect the local environment, wastewater discharges from Stanford buildings are regularly sampled and tested by the City of Palo Alto. Due to the amount of chemicals stored in Stanford laboratory buildings, wastewater from these buildings are held to a very rigorous standard, with strict limitations on a variety of criteria (pH, organic solvents, toxic substances, heavy metals, etc.).
The Stanford Water Quality group has created a Best Management Practices (BMP) Factsheet to provide advice on how to minimize discharge of pollutants. Additional information about Stanford’s wastewater management program.