[Histonet] Re: Xylene re-use SOP

[Adam .]

Just to answer a few more questions people asked. We do not use a solvent
recycler. Once our xylene is "bad," we label it with a sticker and EH&S
picks it up and disposes of it somehow.

The graduate student who started this would just eyeball the xylene and if
it was gunky, replace it with fresh xylene from a big vat stored in a lab
down the hall. I have no idea how many slides it would take to get to that
point, or how many slides we should be processing through it before it stops
working. I would guess that we go through somewhere between 50 - 100 slides
a month, and that's on a busy month. We replace it 3 times a year or so. How
many slides should I be processing through this?

Adam

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Adam . <anonwums1 <@t> gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Our small research lab recently has been investigated by a very aggressive
> environmental health and safety inspector, and she asked us to write up the
> standard of practice for any chemicals that we re-use, including all the
> chemicals we re-use for deparaffinization and dehydration and rehydration of
> slides. We currently keep a few bottles of xylene and graded ethanol that we
> dispense into staining racks used for deparaffinizing and rehydration of
> sections. We pour the bottles back into their containers once we're done
> with them and reuse them until it has a lot of paraffin detritus in it. We
> do this all by hand.
>
> EH&S wants us to do the following:
>
> If a container is labeled "in process" or "recycled" be sure to have an SOP
> written up describing what is being done and what is meant by "recycled" (in
> this case a solution is being used again).  Be sure to say at what point the
> solution is waste and then how it is managed after that (properly labeled
> and disposed). Don't label containers “waste” or “used” unless it is labeled
> with a properly filled out yellow hazardous waste sticker provided by EH&S.
>
> I have no idea what they're looking for, but they've gotten quite strict in
> enforcing all sorts of vague regulations. Any suggestions are welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Adam
>