Dear All
the amount of waste to be autoclaved has risen a lot during the autumn. This is a good development as you are considering the GMO, biosafety and occupational health regulations more carefully than before.
In order to handle the waste in more efficient way in the DWA facilities, I ask you to take care of the new guidelines for the waste deposit.
There should be two separate waste bins in the labs:
1. One for liquid waste: culture plates, liquids in bottles & tubes etc. (ie. liquefying material, agar)
2. Second one for dry waste: pipettes, pipette tips, tubes, gloves etc. Small ( ~ 1 ml ) liquid rest overs can be handled within the dry waste.
By this kind of waste sorting we can run more autoclaving cycles per day as one liquid cycle takes 3 hours and dry waste cycle only for 1 hour. If liquid and dry waste is mixed in the waste bins we can run only 3 hour cycles.
As a reminder: Always keep the plastic bags in the waste bins when you bring the waste to collection points for autoclaving and take new, clean "bagged containers" from the storage room for replacement (max 4). Do not take the plastic bags away from the containers.
With waste sorting greetings
virpi