Questar III has offered a chemical hygiene service to its districts for over two decades. This service helps districts to be in compliance with the federally mandated OSHA laboratory standards for dealing with chemicals. The assistance districts receive includes annual chemical inventory, safety audits, coordination and consultation of chemical storage and disposal, materials sharing in emergency situations, records maintenance, and procurement and provision of Safety Data Sheets (SDS).
A recent opportunity that Questar III assisted our districts with was the coordination of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s CleanSweepNY program. This program provides a safe, cost-effective way to dispose of chemicals in accordance with state law. Health and Safety technician Paul Swieton handled this coordination for districts, working with them to inventory chemicals for disposal, packing the materials in accordance with Department of Transportation regulation, and working with DEC on various logistics.
“We try to maintain a very good relationship with DEC. Districts had to register for Cleansweep with a full manifest of everything they’re getting rid of. We met with Superintendents of Buildings and Grounds, science teachers, did all the paperwork for them, and helped them pack,” Swieton said.
CleanSweepNY is done on a rotating basis throughout the nine DEC regions in the state. Typically the program comes to the Capital Region (Region 4) once every five years. There is no cost for the districts to participate, but there is a charge per pound of chemicals disposed of.
Chemical disposal cost can be very high. Swieton says if a district had only a few small vials of chemicals that were either unneeded, unwanted, or otherwise needing to be disposed of, it could cost upwards of $2,000. Through the CleanSweepNY program, a district could dispose of a far greater amount of chemicals for a fraction of that cost, often only a few hundred dollars.
One district Swieton worked with had so much to dispose of, going through private industry would have cost the district over $2,500. Through CleanSweepNY, the district not only got rid of science chemicals, but old paints, heavy metal inks from a now defunct print shop, photo development chemicals, and other various items for just over $1,000.
Because the cost for disposal is calculated by weight, the same amount of chemicals may not always cost the same. Another district Swieton coordinated for saved $3,000-$4,000 in disposal costs by using the DEC program. A private industry disposal would have cost the district between $5,500 and $6,500. Disposal through CleanSweepNY cost the district only $2,500.
Swieton says another huge benefit of CleanSweepNY is its low-cost for mercury disposal.
“They charge next to nothing for the elimination of mercury. We were paying basically a dollar a thermometer for mercury disposal. Cleanup kits, for a 10 gallon container we paid $20. That would be in the range of $2,000 alone if it were private industry.”
Questar III also does this process for districts when CleanSweepNY is not in our region, soliciting bids and providing them to the district, and coordinating with the vendor once a decision is made. Swieton says, however, the cost savings by participating in DEC’s disposal program are indisputable.
Swieton says all this is done in the name of keeping students and schools safe.
“It’s a way to give superintendents a better understanding of what’s going on without having to do all the legwork themselves, and for us to create safer environments where we’re not stockpiling chemicals and the kids are safe. Ultimately it comes down to we’re trying to keep kids safe.”
