Waste
The rules below are the ones that get missed, taken from the UCLA Chemical Hygiene Plan and the UCLA medical waste SOPs.
Which container
| Waste | Goes in |
|---|---|
| Tips, tubes, plates, gloves, gowns, absorbent, contaminated bedding | Rigid, hard-sided bin lined with a compliant biohazard bag |
| Culture supernatant, used serum or plasma | Bleach to a final 10%, hold at least 10 minutes, then drain with copious water |
| Excess viral vector | Bleach to 10%, hold at least 10 minutes, drain |
| Needles, blades, pins — biohazardous | Red biohazard sharps container |
| Needles, blades, pins — not biohazardous | A sharps container that is NOT red, with a hazardous waste tag |
| Intact tissue | Pathology waste, biohazard container |
| Plasmid, transfection and other non-viable recombinant DNA waste | Medical waste — the same red-bagged biohazard bin. It is not chemical waste and it does not go in the regular bin |
| Carcasses — biohazardous animals only | Double biohazard bags, medical waste ID attached, leak-proof container, then the DLAM biohazard freezer in the MRL vivarium, ground floor. See the note below. |
| Formalin, xylene, solvents | Hazardous chemical waste with a WASTe tag. Never down the drain, never mixed with biohazard waste |
| Broken glass, clean | Glass box — never by hand, always tongs or a dustpan |
Carcasses — which animals this applies to
The double-bagging and medical-waste-ID route is for biohazardous animals only — animals still inside the containment period after viral vector administration, or otherwise designated biohazardous by the protocol.
The containment period is 72 hours after AAV and 96 hours after lentivirus.
Once an animal is past its containment period it is no longer infectious, and it goes through routine DLAM carcass disposal — as does any animal that never received a vector. Treating every carcass as medical waste is not required, costs money, and fills the biohazard freezer with things that do not belong in it.
Biohazardous carcasses go to the DLAM biohazard freezer in the MRL vivarium, on the ground floor. Do not use the freezer another lab uses — the one serving the CHS vivarium is not ours.
The rules people forget
Tag before the first drop. A WASTe tag goes on the container before any waste is added — not when it is full. Same for hazardous sharps receptacles and dry waste bags.
Waste stays at the point of generation. The lab’s waste area is a Satellite Accumulation Area under EPA rules: it must stay under the control of the people generating the waste and out of public access.
Containers stay closed when not in use, stay under 90% full, and liquid waste always sits in secondary containment.
Update the tag the moment a new constituent is added to a mixed container.
Volume limits. 55 gallons of hazardous waste, or 1 quart of extremely hazardous waste — hit either and it must go within 3 days.
Flammables. Maximum 10 gallons outside a flammable storage cabinet, waste included. Individual containers over 1 gallon go in the cabinet.
Non-biohazardous sharps are replaced at two-thirds full or 90 days, whichever comes first. Never recap a needle.
EH&S collects weekly. Clean the outside of liquid containers before drop-off. Use a funnel.
Segregate
- Acids from bases
- Flammables from oxidizers
- Organic acids from inorganic acids
- Oxidizers from organics
- Cyanides from acids
- Halogenated from non-halogenated
Mixing incompatible waste streams is a common cause of laboratory accidents. Reactive mixtures rupture containers.
Reviewed 27 August 2026 against the lab’s Biosafety Use Authorization.
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