Chematix System
Online System for Disposal of Hazardous Waste on Campus
There is an online system for labeling and managing hazardous waste for disposal bythe UofA Office of Environment, Health & Safety (EHS). Individuals use the online CHEMATIX waste management software to prepare Waste Cards that are printed (a pdf file) and attached to each item as a label. When you are ready to have the material picked up from your lab, you make a Hazardous Material Pickup Worksheet by selecting from the Waste Cards that you prepared earlier and that were stored in the database. The Pickup Worksheet is automatically sent to EHS and they come and get the shipment.
Note:
- Waste cards and Pickup sheets are organized for each room so you may want to use a single room as the pickup point for chemical waste if you have more than one lab room
- Radioactive material can only be stored in a room that is licensed to contain such material
- When you add a Waste Card to a Pickup sheet, it disappears from your pool of Waste Cards for that room. If you have a recurring waste item, you can put it on a Hotlist so you can generate a new Waste Card again with less effort.
To use this system, you first register to get a login ID and password and list the rooms that are associated with your lab and from which chemical and radioactive waste may be picked up. Persons who are Principal Investigators and technicians should register as users but whether you want to have every graduate student register is debatable as they could simply use the login/password of the PI or technician to access the system. It is unlikely you would have short term employees like a summer student register although you could.
Registering to use the CHEMATIX system:
Go to the "Dispose of hazardous waste" page and click on the "Register Online" link to create your account. You need to provide your name, email address, phone number CCID and principal investigator name. If you are the only one in the lab, the login name might be "Tom's_Account" but you could also use something like "B311_Prep_Lab" or "Researcher'sNameLab" that several individuals might all use to prepare waste cards. The system will send you a temporary password for that user login name and you can change it to something else and let colleagues know so they can all use the system.
Registering more than one room for pickup:
If you want to register your lab(s) for waste pickup, click on the "Ask EHS" link and complete the information required. In a practical sense if you have more than one lab room, you would probably only register one, then move things there from your other rooms to the main lab when you were having things picked up.
On the EHS CHEMATIX webpage, there is link to the "production software" which is the working system as well as to a "training module" that you can practice with to learn the software (you can make Waste Cards, print them and set up a Pickup Sheet, but no one will come to pick anything up). Follow the instructions on this page to register to use the system. Hopefully, more training sessions will be made available for new registrants and/or printed instructions will be posted on the web site (I can walk you through using the CHEMATIX system if necessary).
Since the Chematix system is fully implemented, the old paper form - REQUEST for Disposal/Recycle of RADIOACTIVE, CHEMICAL and BIOHAZARDOUS MATERIALS will only be used in certain cases. Again use the "Ask EHS" link for advise.