In the lab: Waste

There are a number of things you can do to minimise carbon emissions in connection with laboratory waste. Find out more below.

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It’s important that you follow the guidelines for sorting hazardous waste, which protect your safety and the environment.   

• When handling hazardous waste, such as chemicals or healthcare risk, GMO and radioactive waste, you must follow the guidelines and rules in effect at your department – including developing a waste management plan. If you are in doubt about how to handle and collect  hazardous waste, please contact the department's waste manager(s), which you were introduced to in connection with training/instruction in laboratory work. 
• Only make the quantity you need when preparing reagents, solutions, etc., so you avoid having to dispose of large amounts of unused chemicals as chemical waste.    
• Empty glass bottles that contained hazardous chemicals (particularly organic solvents)must NOT be steam-heated. Instead, empty the bottle completely, rinsing it if desired, put the lid on it and dispose of it as chemical glass waste.   
• Labs don’t only generate toxic waste – they also generate large amounts of ordinary waste that must be sorted into the fractions (types of waste) your department has.  

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It’s important that you don’t dispose of ordinary waste as hazardous waste, because this is an unnecessary burden on the environment. Hazardous waste must be processed manually, and there are stricter requirements for packaging and longer transport. This makes it more expensive to process.

By sorting your waste correctly, you can make a difference for the environment and save your department money. See the table below for details:

*In addition, there are costs for handling packaging, which are higher in the case of hazardous waste than in ordinary waste, as well as the cost of transportation to the treatment plant.   

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Under the Danish act on waste(in Danish) companies must sort at least 12 types of waste for reuse.

• Food waste 
• Paper 
• Cardboard 

• Plastics (hard/soft) 
• Metal 
• Glass (applies to household glass – NOT to glass from laboratories!) 
• Wood 
• Electronics 

• Hard PVC 
• Food and beverage cartons 
• Hazardous waste (for example batteries, containers from hand sanitiser, paint etc.) 
• Small combustible items (residual waste) 
• Textiles (from 2023) 

These 12 fractions will be broken down additionally for recycling.