August 30, 2024 • 20 mins
On average, from 2011 to 2021, academic labs generated around 4,300 metric tons of hazardous waste each year. One of the largest lab-used solvents discarded is dichloromethane and more than half of that waste ends up burned. In today’s episode, policy reporters Krystal Vasquez and Leigh Krietsch Boerner dive into the processes academic labs use to dispose of said waste, the consequences of new EPA regulations around dichloromethane, and what solutions academic institutions are coming up with to accommodate these new rules.
C&EN Uncovered, a project from C&EN’s podcast, Stereo Chemistry, offers a deeper look at subjects from recent stories. Check out Krystal’s story on the new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations regarding dichloromethane at https://cenm.ag/dcmregs and check out Leigh’s story about solvent waste disposal in academic laboratories at https://cenm.ag/wastedisposal.
Cover photo: Lab solvents C&EN July 15th cover photo
Subscribe to Stereo Chemistry now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
A transcript of this episode will be available soon at cen.acs.org.
Credits
Executive producer(s): Gina Vitale, David Anderson
C&EN Uncovered host: Craig Bettenhausen
Reporter(s): Krystal Vasquez, Leigh Krietsch Boerner
Audio editor: Ted Woods
Copyeditor: Bran Vickers
Episode artwork: Will Ludwig
Music: “Hot Chocolate,” by Aves
Contact Stereo Chemistry: Contact us on social media at @cenmag or email cenfeedback@acs.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Craig Bettenhausen (00:00):
Craig, welcome to CNN uncovered. I'm
(00:07):
Craig bednhausen. Cn ynuncovered is a podcast series
from stereo chemistry. In eachepisode, we'll take another look
at a recent cover story inchemical and Engineering News
and hear from CNN reportersabout striking moments from
their reporting, their biggesttakeaways and what got left on
the cutting room floor. In thisepisode, we're talking about
solving wastes their disposaland a new rule passed by EPA in
April to regulate them, onaverage, from 2011 to 2021
(00:32):
academic labs generated around4300 metric tons of hazardous
waste each year. More than halfof that waste ends up burned in
a pair of stories that appearedin the July 15 print issue of
CNN, today's guests looked atthe consequences of the new EPA
regulations and what solutionsacademic institutions are coming
up with to accommodate we'll puta link in the show notes to
(00:53):
those stories. I'm here with CNNpolicy reporters crystal Vazquez
and Lee creechburner, who wrotethe articles. Hi, Crystal and
Lee.
Leigh Boerner (01:00):
Hi, hello. So
Craig Bettenhausen (01:04):
starting off with Lee, for anyone that hasn't
had a chance to read the articleyet, can you give a brief recap
of what it's about?
Leigh Boerner (01:10):
My story is based on data from hazardous waste
shipping reports. I wanted tofind out how much solvent waste
academic labs used. I wrote astory about doing organic
chemistry in water last year.One of the people that is pretty
prominent in that area is BruceLipschitz. He's at UC Santa
(01:30):
Barbara. He said to me at onepoint that what kind of got him
going on, trying to get awayfrom using organic solvents, was
that he made so much waste thatbasically his environmental
health and safety guy at UCSanta Barbara was like, You are
the biggest hazardous wasteproducer in the whole county.
(01:51):
And so he was like, oh, shoot, Ibetter stop that. But then that
made me think, well, how muchwas he making? And then how much
do labs make? And so this storyis me trying to figure out the
answer to that question. Igathered publicly available
government data and analyzed itto find out what kind of waste
academic labs were making andwhat happened to it. Basically,
(02:16):
what I found was most of thewaste that comes out of academic
labs is solvent, and most ofthat waste does end up burned,
so some of it ends up in anincinerator that just burns it
and it goes up into the air, butsome of it also ends up being
used as fuel for cement kilns.So it's also burned, but then
(02:36):
it's used to actually power thecement kiln. So that is
different than an incinerator.So
Craig Bettenhausen (02:41):
an incinerator is burning it just
to get rid of it, yep. Whereas acement kiln or another
cogeneration plant is bothgetting rid of it but also using
it as fuel, right?
Leigh Boerner (02:50):
And I wouldn't say getting rid of it, you know,
it's just changing form, right?
Craig Bettenhausen (02:53):
That's true. Yeah. So in the article, you
showed that the amount of annualwaste generated by these
academic institutions, whichwas, you know, more than 4300
metric tons is nearly equal tothe weight of seven fully loaded
Airbus A 380 aircrafts. Yeah.How is that even possible? I
know I used a lot of solventwhen I was in the lab, but that
just seems like so much.
Leigh Boerner (03:14):
Well, I mean, there are a lot of academic labs
in the United States, and we didjust look in the United States,
so we don't have, at least, Ididn't have, for this article,
data from, you know, Europe,South America, China, other
places in the world. So justthat. But some labs use a lot of
waste. I mean, can you think of,you know, your regular old
(03:36):
organic chemistry, syntheticorganic chemistry lab, even if
it's like on the small side,maybe you have 10 graduate
students, and you have a fewpostdocs and maybe a scientist
or two. How often are thosepeople running columns? That's
what a lot of the solvent comesfrom, but it's also comes from,
you know, running reactions andthings like that. And then, you
know, you rotovap it off, andyou put it in your solvent waste
container, and then you take itdown to EH and S, whenever they
(03:59):
collect it, and then it kind ofdisappears. But as far as you're
concerned, it disappears. Youknow, as far as the atmosphere
goes, it does not disappear.
Craig Bettenhausen (04:08):
So one of the big solvents, a lot of
organic labs, is also one that'srecently come under some
specific EPA scrutiny. Crystal.I think you're gonna be the
expert on this. Tell us aboutyour part of the cover package.
Krystal Vasquez (04:18):
So my story focuses on recent EPA regulation
that was finalized the end ofApril of this year, and
basically the EPA banned mostuses of methylene chloride,
which is more commonly known asdichloromethane, in labs, the
EPA is requiring them to do thisworkplace chemical safety
protection plan, one of the bigthings that academic labs and
(04:41):
EHS professionals were saying inpublic comments before this was
finalized, that this wouldcreate a lot of havoc and a lot
of extra work for them, andmight end up affecting the use
of DCM or dichloromethane ormesenchyroid in the labs
overall. I think largeruniversities are going to be.
Cost effective. The problemcomes when you look at smaller
(05:03):
universities that have limitedstaff and limited financial
resources and will probably haveto outsource a lot of this
exposure monitoring. And so alot of the people I talked to
from those schools were sayingthat they will likely have to
get rid of DCM in their labs.It's a big unfolding story. The
one thing
Craig Bettenhausen (05:21):
I want to understand a little bit these
changes from EPA. Are theychanges in how people are
handling the solvents, or is itmostly a change in paperwork?
Krystal Vasquez (05:30):
I would say that it leans towards a change
in paperwork for research labs.Specifically, it's requiring
basically and a plan to talkabout what you would do in case
of exposure, they're setting newexposure limits. You need to set
up a regulated area, and so youneed to talk about that in your
documentation. Again, thebiggest thing is the exposure
(05:50):
monitoring, which is alsotechnically on the side of
paperwork, but it does requireactual labor from the
researchers and H and S staff toactually get that set up.
Craig Bettenhausen (06:00):
And you know, from EPA is the big
concern here environmentalimpact or human health exposure.
Krystal Vasquez (06:07):
The main thing that the EPA is focusing is the
human health impact. So DCM hasa lot of health effects. It's
carcinogen, and it has causedthe death of people who have
used it, typically for consumeruse, but it does have that
potential health effect. Sothey're hoping that with these
new protection programs that theEPA is setting up that it will
(06:30):
reduce the likelihood of thosethings happening, but it does
have consequences in terms oflike actually setting up those
plans and making sure that itdoesn't necessarily interfere
with the research.
Craig Bettenhausen (06:44):
So I have a very personal interest in this,
because when I was in the lab, Iwas the person who was in charge
of going down to the centralroom and refilling drums from a
giant drum. And for me, that waslike literally sitting on top of
a 55 gallon drum ofdichloromethane, pumping it into
a smaller bottle. How dangerousis dichloromethane exposure? I
(07:07):
think for a lot of chemists inour audience, they've been
exposed to a lot.
Krystal Vasquez (07:11):
I think that if you're using it the way you're
supposed to, in a fume hood withthe right PPE and all of that,
your exposure should be smallerthan if you were saying using
Bethlehem chloride for like, apaint thinner, it used to be in
paint thinners until not toolong ago. I don't know how to
answer that exactly, but I dothink that, like academic labs
(07:34):
and research labs in general,are very unique places that have
a lot of different controlmethods and a lot of safety
protocols set up. So, yeah, Iwould say that if you're
following your Chemical Hygieneplan, that an EHS person has set
out with their expertise, thatyou should be fine. I think that
what the EPA wants is just tolower those exposure limits so
(07:57):
that you're just even safer. Youknow?
Leigh Boerner (07:59):
I mean, I would say that it's really, really
difficult to figure out anindividual's risk from that just
because of what Krista wassaying, like, how are you using
it as your hood on, how much areyou using it, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, for me, when I was ingraduate school, dichloromethane
(08:20):
was one of the few things thatmy molecules would go into,
because I made kind of bigmolecules, and sometimes they
had metals in them, and so Iwent through a ton of
dichloromethane, and it was thesame for a lot of people in my
lab. I can't imagine not beingable to use dichloromethane. It
would really, it would havereally messed up my research.
(08:42):
Personally, one source
Krystal Vasquez (08:44):
I talked to said it's basically a whole
paper's worth of research to tryand find a different solvent for
a reaction. So this is going totake, like, hours and hours and
hours of work for theseresearchers who are either
voluntarily choosing to get ridof DCM from their labs or are
being forced to by thecircumstances of their
institution.
Craig Bettenhausen (09:02):
And deckler, methane is kind of a superstar
solvent in some labs, but it'sjust one of several solvents.
And Lee, your story looked at amuch larger category of solvents
in a chemistry lab, it feelslike you go through a ton, like
literally hauling these thingsin and out of the lab by the
drum. But how do the volumesused in research labs compare
with the volumes used inindustrial applications, and is
(09:25):
it for the same kinds of uses?Well,
Leigh Boerner (09:30):
an industrial lab and an academic research lab are
very, very different places. Iwill say that just for my own
sake, I was curious about Allright, so, you know, we figured
out, you know, this hazardouswaste that's coming out of
academic labs. How does itcompare to the entire amount of
(09:50):
waste, like from a particularyear? And it was very, very
small. It was 0.005% Yeah. In2021
Krystal Vasquez (10:01):
Okay,
Leigh Boerner (10:02):
so that is, like, I don't know what's smaller than
a drop in the bucket, a nanodrop in a mega bucket. So it is
a tiny, tiny amount. But whatthe important part is, according
to Adelina vuckova, who is thedirector of the ACS Green
(10:24):
Chemistry Institute. When I toldher the numbers, she was like,
Okay, well, but then she alsosaid, Well, what's important
here is teaching graduatestudents how to sub in different
solvents, so it's notnecessarily the total amount
(10:44):
that academic labs are making.It is the learning process that
students are going through.Because, you know, when those
students graduate, when theyleave, they're going to
industry, you know, they'regoing to teach their own
academic lab. They're going onto other places, and many people
hope, including a lot of peoplein industry, that they will take
(11:07):
this kind of knowledge with themand then apply it
Craig Bettenhausen (11:09):
later on. I guess there's industrial labs
and there's also like industrialscale synthesis.
Leigh Boerner (11:16):
Yes, what I'm speaking of is industrial scale
synthesis, not necessarily likea research lab. But you know,
the part that actually startsmaking the drugs and scales
these reactions up, you know,huge, huge amounts when they
have to make huge, huge amountsof drugs, right? And so that's
where the volume comes in withhalogenated solvents. You know,
(11:36):
what is the fate of some of thiswaste? 28.32% is incinerated.
18.97% is used for fuelblending. That means that it's
used to basically power cementkiln, and 45.83% is bulked.
Yeah,
Craig Bettenhausen (11:53):
I saw the word bulked in your story, and I
read it a couple times, andstill it's a strange phrase. It
seems like it's an ambiguousterm all by itself.
Leigh Boerner (12:05):
Yeah, it's completely ambiguous. Because
what does that mean? Itbasically means that companies
that deal with the hazardouswaste, they take waste from
different sources. So that meansthat this school gave this here,
that one across town made thismuch. They basically combine it
(12:26):
and put it in a bigger bucket,say, like a tanker car or
something like that. As far aswhat I've been looking at, which
is the Resource Conservation andRecovery Act, data RCRA is what
they call it. According to therickra manifests, that's kind of
the end of the road, as far aswhat you can see. But that goes
(12:50):
on to be either incinerated orused for fuel blending or etc,
etc, somewhere else. So thatmeans that as far as my analysis
of this data goes, What's beingburned, either incinerated or as
fuel, is more than what I'm ableto pull out. So
Craig Bettenhausen (13:12):
crystal, the EPA, banned a lot of uses of
dichloromethane a few years ago.Paint strippers is the example
that a lot of people know of andthat we covered. How does this
new ban differ from the olderban. Yeah,
Krystal Vasquez (13:23):
so the initial ban was just paint strippers, I
believe commercial use paintstrippers. This time, they've
kind of made it morecomprehensive. So they've banned
all consumer uses of DCM, andmost commercial and industrial
uses of DCM, with the exceptionof, I believe, 30, which
includes using it as alaboratory chemical.
Craig Bettenhausen (13:45):
And this isn't even the first time that
we've taken some solvents,specific solvents, out of a
organic chemistry labs, right?This isn't your story. There's
some other previous solventsthat used to be used a lot, and
now they're not right,
Krystal Vasquez (13:56):
right? Benzene is, I believe, one of the
biggest examples, and one that Iheard about repeatedly. Benzene
used to be ubiquitous in thelab, and now it's not used as
widely anymore. So I think thegeneral consensus that I reached
in my story was that it ispossible to reduce the use of
DCM despite how popular it isright now, I think it's just
(14:19):
going to take a lot of work anda lot of rethinking of reactions
and rethinking what yourchemistry needs, and also
rethinking the different hazardsthat you have to like balance
out as you're deciding whichsolvents to use in your
chemistry.
Craig Bettenhausen (14:35):
So reducing solvent waste is a big part of
green chemistry. It's it's inmore than one of the original 12
principles of green chemistry,which was published about 25
years ago. This far into thatmovement, how much progress has
been made and what's coming downthe pike. As far as new
approaches to these solvents,there
Leigh Boerner (14:54):
are other solvents that you can use that
are a little bit more eco for.Friendly, like, I don't know one
called the universal solventwater. It is difficult to use
water for some types ofreactions, but, you know,
there's a lot of research goingon into doing chemistry and
(15:15):
water. There's also been a lotof research into what makes a
more environmentally friendlysolvent. GCI has actually a
guide on replacing your solventswith greener alternatives.
There's a lot of research intogoing, Okay, I need a solvent
that does X. Look at this table,okay, these types of solvents do
(15:38):
X. Maybe I can use one of thoseinstead. So that's kind of where
it is. I
Krystal Vasquez (15:43):
think one thing that's important to point out
is, regardless of whether you'rereplacing a solvent because of
regulation or to try and get agreener solvent, you have to
really think about the potentialhealth effects and the safety
issues that come with it. So onething that I found in my story
that some people are concernedabout is that in order to
replace DCM, they might end upreplacing it with a solvent that
(16:06):
has different hazards, so maybeit could cause lab explosions,
or maybe it's another solvent oranother compound that might be
on EPA list. So I think that'sjust something to keep in mind
as people are doing their lidsearches, is to really do their
homework and make sure thatthey're not replacing one
solvent with something thatcould be worse another way, you
(16:27):
know, yeah,
Craig Bettenhausen (16:27):
the old regrettable substitution. So is
there anything else in either orboth of your stories as you
worked on this that you thoughtwas really interesting and just
didn't make it into the writtenpiece. One
Krystal Vasquez (16:41):
thing that came up a few times, and I didn't get
to include it, was the worrythat dichloromethane is going to
get more expensive because ofthis regulation, because the
manufacturers are also they haveto comply with this regulation
as well. And so I haven't lookedinto where DCM is produced, or,
like, how much of it is USbased? But I think there was
(17:03):
definitely concern amongstacademics talking about, like,
is this going to cost me more,and if I'm at a small school,
will I be able to afford it,regardless of if we can set up
the monitoring program and doall the other things with the
workplace chemical protectionprogram, something
Leigh Boerner (17:18):
else crystal that I wondered about too, is okay,
you say, maybe small schoolsjust might have to say, Okay, we
just can't use it, because wecan't keep up. We can't, you
know, have somebody dedicated tojust like, figuring out these
regulations. Is that going toaffect the recruitment for
professors? So you think, youknow, professors, like, uses a
(17:40):
lot of DCM for their research.I'm not going to go work at this
school. They say, I can't useDCM. I'm going to go work at
this other school. I
Krystal Vasquez (17:48):
couldn't really gather how much of an impact it
would have like on studentrecruitment. I think that when
you work at a primarilyundergraduate institution or
other liberal arts schools thatyou are competing with, bigger
schools in general. So thatcompetition is always going to
be there. So I don't necessarilyknow if this is going to add to
(18:09):
it, but it could be just anotherfactor of like, if someone wants
to do a very specific type ofchemistry that needs DCM, they
might end up going to anotherschool. So
Craig Bettenhausen (18:20):
Lee, what about you?
Leigh Boerner (18:21):
I have a whole section of data that did not
make it into the story, and thatis on specific
Craig Bettenhausen (18:29):
schools are we going to get in? We're going
to name names.
Leigh Boerner (18:33):
One thing you'd have to remember is, the bigger
the school, the more students ithas, the more waste it's going
to make, if you're talkingabout, you know, academic, lab
research, just for instance, in2021 the biggest producer of
hazardous waste was theUniversity of California, San
Diego, and that was 142.35metric tons. And then the next
(18:58):
one on the list is theUniversity of Michigan, at
around 100 tons. So that's apretty big jump. But the other
kind of interesting thing aboutthis data is that sometimes the
same schools are at the top, andthen one year, it won't appear
in the top 20 at all.
Craig Bettenhausen (19:16):
Well, Crystal and Lee, thanks for
diving deep on this with us.There's a lot here, and I
enjoyed reading the stories andenjoyed
Leigh Boerner (19:22):
talking with you about it. Thanks a lot. Craig.
Yeah, thanks. So
Craig Bettenhausen (19:25):
people can find me on social media, as at
Craig of waffles, and in mostplaces, where can they find you
all,
Leigh Boerner (19:30):
I am on Twitter or x or whatever, formerly known
that thing at Lee JK Berner. Iam on mastodon. I don't remember
what the heck it is. You canfind me on LinkedIn, but I went
over there birds homing pigeonswill find me. You just have to
know what kind of treats to getthem. But I do have cats. They
(19:53):
might have contact.
Krystal Vasquez (19:54):
I am occasionally on Twitter, slash x
at caffeinated Chris the last.It's called K, R, y, s, and I am
on blue sky at K desk. You canfind me there. Well,
Craig Bettenhausen (20:07):
you can find crystal and Lee's cover stories
about solvent wastes and the EPAupdated regulations around
methylene chloride on CNNswebsite, or in the July 15 print
issue of CNN, we put links inthe show notes along with the
episode credits. If you'd loveto know what you think of CNN
uncovered, you can share yourfeedback with us by emailing
cenfeedback@acs.org This hasbeen cn uncovered, a series from
(20:30):
cn stereochemistry. Stereochemistry is the official
podcast of chemical andEngineering News. Chemical and
Engineering News is anindependent news outlet
published by the AmericanChemical Society. Thanks for
listening. Bye.
Craig, welcome to CNN uncovered. I'm
(00:07):
Craig bednhausen. Cn ynuncovered is a podcast series
from stereo chemistry. In eachepisode, we'll take another look
at a recent cover story inchemical and Engineering News
and hear from CNN reportersabout striking moments from
their reporting, their biggesttakeaways and what got left on
the cutting room floor. In thisepisode, we're talking about
solving wastes their disposaland a new rule passed by EPA in
April to regulate them, onaverage, from 2011 to 2021
(00:32):
academic labs generated around4300 metric tons of hazardous
waste each year. More than halfof that waste ends up burned in
a pair of stories that appearedin the July 15 print issue of
CNN, today's guests looked atthe consequences of the new EPA
regulations and what solutionsacademic institutions are coming
up with to accommodate we'll puta link in the show notes to
(00:53):
those stories. I'm here with CNNpolicy reporters crystal Vazquez
and Lee creechburner, who wrotethe articles. Hi, Crystal and
Lee.
Leigh Boerner (01:00):
Hi, hello. So
Craig Bettenhausen (01:04):
starting off with Lee, for anyone that hasn't
had a chance to read the articleyet, can you give a brief recap
of what it's about?
Leigh Boerner (01:10):
My story is based on data from hazardous waste
shipping reports. I wanted tofind out how much solvent waste
academic labs used. I wrote astory about doing organic
chemistry in water last year.One of the people that is pretty
prominent in that area is BruceLipschitz. He's at UC Santa
(01:30):
Barbara. He said to me at onepoint that what kind of got him
going on, trying to get awayfrom using organic solvents, was
that he made so much waste thatbasically his environmental
health and safety guy at UCSanta Barbara was like, You are
the biggest hazardous wasteproducer in the whole county.
(01:51):
And so he was like, oh, shoot, Ibetter stop that. But then that
made me think, well, how muchwas he making? And then how much
do labs make? And so this storyis me trying to figure out the
answer to that question. Igathered publicly available
government data and analyzed itto find out what kind of waste
academic labs were making andwhat happened to it. Basically,
(02:16):
what I found was most of thewaste that comes out of academic
labs is solvent, and most ofthat waste does end up burned,
so some of it ends up in anincinerator that just burns it
and it goes up into the air, butsome of it also ends up being
used as fuel for cement kilns.So it's also burned, but then
(02:36):
it's used to actually power thecement kiln. So that is
different than an incinerator.So
Craig Bettenhausen (02:41):
an incinerator is burning it just
to get rid of it, yep. Whereas acement kiln or another
cogeneration plant is bothgetting rid of it but also using
it as fuel, right?
Leigh Boerner (02:50):
And I wouldn't say getting rid of it, you know,
it's just changing form, right?
Craig Bettenhausen (02:53):
That's true. Yeah. So in the article, you
showed that the amount of annualwaste generated by these
academic institutions, whichwas, you know, more than 4300
metric tons is nearly equal tothe weight of seven fully loaded
Airbus A 380 aircrafts. Yeah.How is that even possible? I
know I used a lot of solventwhen I was in the lab, but that
just seems like so much.
Leigh Boerner (03:14):
Well, I mean, there are a lot of academic labs
in the United States, and we didjust look in the United States,
so we don't have, at least, Ididn't have, for this article,
data from, you know, Europe,South America, China, other
places in the world. So justthat. But some labs use a lot of
waste. I mean, can you think of,you know, your regular old
(03:36):
organic chemistry, syntheticorganic chemistry lab, even if
it's like on the small side,maybe you have 10 graduate
students, and you have a fewpostdocs and maybe a scientist
or two. How often are thosepeople running columns? That's
what a lot of the solvent comesfrom, but it's also comes from,
you know, running reactions andthings like that. And then, you
know, you rotovap it off, andyou put it in your solvent waste
container, and then you take itdown to EH and S, whenever they
(03:59):
collect it, and then it kind ofdisappears. But as far as you're
concerned, it disappears. Youknow, as far as the atmosphere
goes, it does not disappear.
Craig Bettenhausen (04:08):
So one of the big solvents, a lot of
organic labs, is also one that'srecently come under some
specific EPA scrutiny. Crystal.I think you're gonna be the
expert on this. Tell us aboutyour part of the cover package.
Krystal Vasquez (04:18):
So my story focuses on recent EPA regulation
that was finalized the end ofApril of this year, and
basically the EPA banned mostuses of methylene chloride,
which is more commonly known asdichloromethane, in labs, the
EPA is requiring them to do thisworkplace chemical safety
protection plan, one of the bigthings that academic labs and
(04:41):
EHS professionals were saying inpublic comments before this was
finalized, that this wouldcreate a lot of havoc and a lot
of extra work for them, andmight end up affecting the use
of DCM or dichloromethane ormesenchyroid in the labs
overall. I think largeruniversities are going to be.
Cost effective. The problemcomes when you look at smaller
(05:03):
universities that have limitedstaff and limited financial
resources and will probably haveto outsource a lot of this
exposure monitoring. And so alot of the people I talked to
from those schools were sayingthat they will likely have to
get rid of DCM in their labs.It's a big unfolding story. The
one thing
Craig Bettenhausen (05:21):
I want to understand a little bit these
changes from EPA. Are theychanges in how people are
handling the solvents, or is itmostly a change in paperwork?
Krystal Vasquez (05:30):
I would say that it leans towards a change
in paperwork for research labs.Specifically, it's requiring
basically and a plan to talkabout what you would do in case
of exposure, they're setting newexposure limits. You need to set
up a regulated area, and so youneed to talk about that in your
documentation. Again, thebiggest thing is the exposure
(05:50):
monitoring, which is alsotechnically on the side of
paperwork, but it does requireactual labor from the
researchers and H and S staff toactually get that set up.
Craig Bettenhausen (06:00):
And you know, from EPA is the big
concern here environmentalimpact or human health exposure.
Krystal Vasquez (06:07):
The main thing that the EPA is focusing is the
human health impact. So DCM hasa lot of health effects. It's
carcinogen, and it has causedthe death of people who have
used it, typically for consumeruse, but it does have that
potential health effect. Sothey're hoping that with these
new protection programs that theEPA is setting up that it will
(06:30):
reduce the likelihood of thosethings happening, but it does
have consequences in terms oflike actually setting up those
plans and making sure that itdoesn't necessarily interfere
with the research.
Craig Bettenhausen (06:44):
So I have a very personal interest in this,
because when I was in the lab, Iwas the person who was in charge
of going down to the centralroom and refilling drums from a
giant drum. And for me, that waslike literally sitting on top of
a 55 gallon drum ofdichloromethane, pumping it into
a smaller bottle. How dangerousis dichloromethane exposure? I
(07:07):
think for a lot of chemists inour audience, they've been
exposed to a lot.
Krystal Vasquez (07:11):
I think that if you're using it the way you're
supposed to, in a fume hood withthe right PPE and all of that,
your exposure should be smallerthan if you were saying using
Bethlehem chloride for like, apaint thinner, it used to be in
paint thinners until not toolong ago. I don't know how to
answer that exactly, but I dothink that, like academic labs
(07:34):
and research labs in general,are very unique places that have
a lot of different controlmethods and a lot of safety
protocols set up. So, yeah, Iwould say that if you're
following your Chemical Hygieneplan, that an EHS person has set
out with their expertise, thatyou should be fine. I think that
what the EPA wants is just tolower those exposure limits so
(07:57):
that you're just even safer. Youknow?
Leigh Boerner (07:59):
I mean, I would say that it's really, really
difficult to figure out anindividual's risk from that just
because of what Krista wassaying, like, how are you using
it as your hood on, how much areyou using it, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, for me, when I was ingraduate school, dichloromethane
(08:20):
was one of the few things thatmy molecules would go into,
because I made kind of bigmolecules, and sometimes they
had metals in them, and so Iwent through a ton of
dichloromethane, and it was thesame for a lot of people in my
lab. I can't imagine not beingable to use dichloromethane. It
would really, it would havereally messed up my research.
(08:42):
Personally, one source
Krystal Vasquez (08:44):
I talked to said it's basically a whole
paper's worth of research to tryand find a different solvent for
a reaction. So this is going totake, like, hours and hours and
hours of work for theseresearchers who are either
voluntarily choosing to get ridof DCM from their labs or are
being forced to by thecircumstances of their
institution.
Craig Bettenhausen (09:02):
And deckler, methane is kind of a superstar
solvent in some labs, but it'sjust one of several solvents.
And Lee, your story looked at amuch larger category of solvents
in a chemistry lab, it feelslike you go through a ton, like
literally hauling these thingsin and out of the lab by the
drum. But how do the volumesused in research labs compare
with the volumes used inindustrial applications, and is
(09:25):
it for the same kinds of uses?Well,
Leigh Boerner (09:30):
an industrial lab and an academic research lab are
very, very different places. Iwill say that just for my own
sake, I was curious about Allright, so, you know, we figured
out, you know, this hazardouswaste that's coming out of
academic labs. How does itcompare to the entire amount of
(09:50):
waste, like from a particularyear? And it was very, very
small. It was 0.005% Yeah. In2021
Krystal Vasquez (10:01):
Okay,
Leigh Boerner (10:02):
so that is, like, I don't know what's smaller than
a drop in the bucket, a nanodrop in a mega bucket. So it is
a tiny, tiny amount. But whatthe important part is, according
to Adelina vuckova, who is thedirector of the ACS Green
(10:24):
Chemistry Institute. When I toldher the numbers, she was like,
Okay, well, but then she alsosaid, Well, what's important
here is teaching graduatestudents how to sub in different
solvents, so it's notnecessarily the total amount
(10:44):
that academic labs are making.It is the learning process that
students are going through.Because, you know, when those
students graduate, when theyleave, they're going to
industry, you know, they'regoing to teach their own
academic lab. They're going onto other places, and many people
hope, including a lot of peoplein industry, that they will take
(11:07):
this kind of knowledge with themand then apply it
Craig Bettenhausen (11:09):
later on. I guess there's industrial labs
and there's also like industrialscale synthesis.
Leigh Boerner (11:16):
Yes, what I'm speaking of is industrial scale
synthesis, not necessarily likea research lab. But you know,
the part that actually startsmaking the drugs and scales
these reactions up, you know,huge, huge amounts when they
have to make huge, huge amountsof drugs, right? And so that's
where the volume comes in withhalogenated solvents. You know,
(11:36):
what is the fate of some of thiswaste? 28.32% is incinerated.
18.97% is used for fuelblending. That means that it's
used to basically power cementkiln, and 45.83% is bulked.
Yeah,
Craig Bettenhausen (11:53):
I saw the word bulked in your story, and I
read it a couple times, andstill it's a strange phrase. It
seems like it's an ambiguousterm all by itself.
Leigh Boerner (12:05):
Yeah, it's completely ambiguous. Because
what does that mean? Itbasically means that companies
that deal with the hazardouswaste, they take waste from
different sources. So that meansthat this school gave this here,
that one across town made thismuch. They basically combine it
(12:26):
and put it in a bigger bucket,say, like a tanker car or
something like that. As far aswhat I've been looking at, which
is the Resource Conservation andRecovery Act, data RCRA is what
they call it. According to therickra manifests, that's kind of
the end of the road, as far aswhat you can see. But that goes
(12:50):
on to be either incinerated orused for fuel blending or etc,
etc, somewhere else. So thatmeans that as far as my analysis
of this data goes, What's beingburned, either incinerated or as
fuel, is more than what I'm ableto pull out. So
Craig Bettenhausen (13:12):
crystal, the EPA, banned a lot of uses of
dichloromethane a few years ago.Paint strippers is the example
that a lot of people know of andthat we covered. How does this
new ban differ from the olderban. Yeah,
Krystal Vasquez (13:23):
so the initial ban was just paint strippers, I
believe commercial use paintstrippers. This time, they've
kind of made it morecomprehensive. So they've banned
all consumer uses of DCM, andmost commercial and industrial
uses of DCM, with the exceptionof, I believe, 30, which
includes using it as alaboratory chemical.
Craig Bettenhausen (13:45):
And this isn't even the first time that
we've taken some solvents,specific solvents, out of a
organic chemistry labs, right?This isn't your story. There's
some other previous solventsthat used to be used a lot, and
now they're not right,
Krystal Vasquez (13:56):
right? Benzene is, I believe, one of the
biggest examples, and one that Iheard about repeatedly. Benzene
used to be ubiquitous in thelab, and now it's not used as
widely anymore. So I think thegeneral consensus that I reached
in my story was that it ispossible to reduce the use of
DCM despite how popular it isright now, I think it's just
(14:19):
going to take a lot of work anda lot of rethinking of reactions
and rethinking what yourchemistry needs, and also
rethinking the different hazardsthat you have to like balance
out as you're deciding whichsolvents to use in your
chemistry.
Craig Bettenhausen (14:35):
So reducing solvent waste is a big part of
green chemistry. It's it's inmore than one of the original 12
principles of green chemistry,which was published about 25
years ago. This far into thatmovement, how much progress has
been made and what's coming downthe pike. As far as new
approaches to these solvents,there
Leigh Boerner (14:54):
are other solvents that you can use that
are a little bit more eco for.Friendly, like, I don't know one
called the universal solventwater. It is difficult to use
water for some types ofreactions, but, you know,
there's a lot of research goingon into doing chemistry and
(15:15):
water. There's also been a lotof research into what makes a
more environmentally friendlysolvent. GCI has actually a
guide on replacing your solventswith greener alternatives.
There's a lot of research intogoing, Okay, I need a solvent
that does X. Look at this table,okay, these types of solvents do
(15:38):
X. Maybe I can use one of thoseinstead. So that's kind of where
it is. I
Krystal Vasquez (15:43):
think one thing that's important to point out
is, regardless of whether you'rereplacing a solvent because of
regulation or to try and get agreener solvent, you have to
really think about the potentialhealth effects and the safety
issues that come with it. So onething that I found in my story
that some people are concernedabout is that in order to
replace DCM, they might end upreplacing it with a solvent that
(16:06):
has different hazards, so maybeit could cause lab explosions,
or maybe it's another solvent oranother compound that might be
on EPA list. So I think that'sjust something to keep in mind
as people are doing their lidsearches, is to really do their
homework and make sure thatthey're not replacing one
solvent with something thatcould be worse another way, you
(16:27):
know, yeah,
Craig Bettenhausen (16:27):
the old regrettable substitution. So is
there anything else in either orboth of your stories as you
worked on this that you thoughtwas really interesting and just
didn't make it into the writtenpiece. One
Krystal Vasquez (16:41):
thing that came up a few times, and I didn't get
to include it, was the worrythat dichloromethane is going to
get more expensive because ofthis regulation, because the
manufacturers are also they haveto comply with this regulation
as well. And so I haven't lookedinto where DCM is produced, or,
like, how much of it is USbased? But I think there was
(17:03):
definitely concern amongstacademics talking about, like,
is this going to cost me more,and if I'm at a small school,
will I be able to afford it,regardless of if we can set up
the monitoring program and doall the other things with the
workplace chemical protectionprogram, something
Leigh Boerner (17:18):
else crystal that I wondered about too, is okay,
you say, maybe small schoolsjust might have to say, Okay, we
just can't use it, because wecan't keep up. We can't, you
know, have somebody dedicated tojust like, figuring out these
regulations. Is that going toaffect the recruitment for
professors? So you think, youknow, professors, like, uses a
(17:40):
lot of DCM for their research.I'm not going to go work at this
school. They say, I can't useDCM. I'm going to go work at
this other school. I
Krystal Vasquez (17:48):
couldn't really gather how much of an impact it
would have like on studentrecruitment. I think that when
you work at a primarilyundergraduate institution or
other liberal arts schools thatyou are competing with, bigger
schools in general. So thatcompetition is always going to
be there. So I don't necessarilyknow if this is going to add to
(18:09):
it, but it could be just anotherfactor of like, if someone wants
to do a very specific type ofchemistry that needs DCM, they
might end up going to anotherschool. So
Craig Bettenhausen (18:20):
Lee, what about you?
Leigh Boerner (18:21):
I have a whole section of data that did not
make it into the story, and thatis on specific
Craig Bettenhausen (18:29):
schools are we going to get in? We're going
to name names.
Leigh Boerner (18:33):
One thing you'd have to remember is, the bigger
the school, the more students ithas, the more waste it's going
to make, if you're talkingabout, you know, academic, lab
research, just for instance, in2021 the biggest producer of
hazardous waste was theUniversity of California, San
Diego, and that was 142.35metric tons. And then the next
(18:58):
one on the list is theUniversity of Michigan, at
around 100 tons. So that's apretty big jump. But the other
kind of interesting thing aboutthis data is that sometimes the
same schools are at the top, andthen one year, it won't appear
in the top 20 at all.
Craig Bettenhausen (19:16):
Well, Crystal and Lee, thanks for
diving deep on this with us.There's a lot here, and I
enjoyed reading the stories andenjoyed
Leigh Boerner (19:22):
talking with you about it. Thanks a lot. Craig.
Yeah, thanks. So
Craig Bettenhausen (19:25):
people can find me on social media, as at
Craig of waffles, and in mostplaces, where can they find you
all,
Leigh Boerner (19:30):
I am on Twitter or x or whatever, formerly known
that thing at Lee JK Berner. Iam on mastodon. I don't remember
what the heck it is. You canfind me on LinkedIn, but I went
over there birds homing pigeonswill find me. You just have to
know what kind of treats to getthem. But I do have cats. They
(19:53):
might have contact.
Krystal Vasquez (19:54):
I am occasionally on Twitter, slash x
at caffeinated Chris the last.It's called K, R, y, s, and I am
on blue sky at K desk. You canfind me there. Well,
Craig Bettenhausen (20:07):
you can find crystal and Lee's cover stories
about solvent wastes and the EPAupdated regulations around
methylene chloride on CNNswebsite, or in the July 15 print
issue of CNN, we put links inthe show notes along with the
episode credits. If you'd loveto know what you think of CNN
uncovered, you can share yourfeedback with us by emailing
cenfeedback@acs.org This hasbeen cn uncovered, a series from
(20:30):
cn stereochemistry. Stereochemistry is the official
podcast of chemical andEngineering News. Chemical and
Engineering News is anindependent news outlet
published by the AmericanChemical Society. Thanks for
listening. Bye.
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