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Staff of treatment facility
removes waste at Purdue
By Russ Brickey
Staff
Writer
With a small staff of 10 trained personnel, Purdue
University's Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility plant maintains
between 200 and 350 thousand pounds of chemical waste a year.
"With 10,000 faculty and nearly forty thousand
students, (Purdue University) is basically a small city whose primary
purpose is research," said hazardous materials manager Steve Gauger.
"So there's a fair amount of waste generated."
The storage facility, located on Ahlers Road, is
permitted to store hazardous waste for up to one year, after which it
is shipped to a permanent storage site.
The majority of the chemical waste is generated
by on-campus research, and generally includes solvents, salts and other
"typical laboratory waste."
"All of our waste is shipped off site to a hazardous
waste vender, which we spend a lot of time researching to make sure
it is disposed of in a proper manner," said Gauger.
The average storage time for hazardous materials
at Purdue's Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility is much shorter,
however, and the metal drums containing the chemicals are usually moved
off site after only four months.
Gauger, who has bachelor of science degrees in
both civil and agricultural engineering from Purdue, oversees the daily
maintenance and ongoing training of plant personnel.
Personnel are given training on how to handle hazardous
materials on a weekly basis, including emergency procedures which, Gauger
points out, "have not been implemented in the entire life of the building."
"If you work in a lab and generate chemical waste,"
Gauger said, "we want you to be aware of the program, so please give
us a call. We want to capture every bit of chemical waste generated."
The Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility can
be reached at 494-0238.
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Campus editor:
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Assistant campus
editors: Kurt Esposito,
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