C&EN Uncovered: Solvent Waste Levels, EPA Regulations, and Disposal

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Craig Bettenhausen: Craig,
welcome to CNN uncovered. I'm

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Craig bednhausen. Cn yn
uncovered is a podcast series

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from stereo chemistry. In each
episode, we'll take another look

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at a recent cover story in
chemical and Engineering News

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and hear from CNN reporters
about striking moments from

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their reporting, their biggest
takeaways and what got left on

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the cutting room floor. In this
episode, we're talking about

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solving wastes their disposal
and a new rule passed by EPA in

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April to regulate them, on
average, from 2011 to 2021

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academic labs generated around
4300 metric tons of hazardous

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waste each year. More than half
of that waste ends up burned in

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a pair of stories that appeared
in the July 15 print issue of

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CNN, today's guests looked at
the consequences of the new EPA

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regulations and what solutions
academic institutions are coming

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up with to accommodate we'll put
a link in the show notes to

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those stories. I'm here with CNN
policy reporters crystal Vazquez

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and Lee creechburner, who wrote
the articles. Hi, Crystal and

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Lee.

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Leigh Boerner: Hi, hello. So

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Craig Bettenhausen: starting off
with Lee, for anyone that hasn't

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had a chance to read the article
yet, can you give a brief recap

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of what it's about?

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Leigh Boerner: My story is based
on data from hazardous waste

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shipping reports. I wanted to
find out how much solvent waste

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academic labs used. I wrote a
story about doing organic

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chemistry in water last year.
One of the people that is pretty

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prominent in that area is Bruce
Lipschitz. He's at UC Santa

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Barbara. He said to me at one
point that what kind of got him

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going on, trying to get away
from using organic solvents, was

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that he made so much waste that
basically his environmental

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health and safety guy at UC
Santa Barbara was like, You are

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the biggest hazardous waste
producer in the whole county.

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And so he was like, oh, shoot, I
better stop that. But then that

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made me think, well, how much
was he making? And then how much

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do labs make? And so this story
is me trying to figure out the

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answer to that question. I
gathered publicly available

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government data and analyzed it
to find out what kind of waste

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academic labs were making and
what happened to it. Basically,

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what I found was most of the
waste that comes out of academic

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labs is solvent, and most of
that waste does end up burned,

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so some of it ends up in an
incinerator that just burns it

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and it goes up into the air, but
some of it also ends up being

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used as fuel for cement kilns.
So it's also burned, but then

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it's used to actually power the
cement kiln. So that is

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different than an incinerator.
So

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Craig Bettenhausen: an
incinerator is burning it just

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to get rid of it, yep. Whereas a
cement kiln or another

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cogeneration plant is both
getting rid of it but also using

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it as fuel, right?

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Leigh Boerner: And I wouldn't
say getting rid of it, you know,

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it's just changing form, right?

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Craig Bettenhausen: That's true.
Yeah. So in the article, you

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showed that the amount of annual
waste generated by these

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academic institutions, which
was, you know, more than 4300

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metric tons is nearly equal to
the weight of seven fully loaded

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Airbus A 380 aircrafts. Yeah.
How is that even possible? I

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know I used a lot of solvent
when I was in the lab, but that

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just seems like so much.

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Leigh Boerner: Well, I mean,
there are a lot of academic labs

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in the United States, and we did
just look in the United States,

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so we don't have, at least, I
didn't have, for this article,

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data from, you know, Europe,
South America, China, other

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places in the world. So just
that. But some labs use a lot of

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waste. I mean, can you think of,
you know, your regular old

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organic chemistry, synthetic
organic chemistry lab, even if

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it's like on the small side,
maybe you have 10 graduate

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students, and you have a few
postdocs and maybe a scientist

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or two. How often are those
people running columns? That's

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what a lot of the solvent comes
from, but it's also comes from,

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you know, running reactions and
things like that. And then, you

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know, you rotovap it off, and
you put it in your solvent waste

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container, and then you take it
down to EH and S, whenever they

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collect it, and then it kind of
disappears. But as far as you're

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concerned, it disappears. You
know, as far as the atmosphere

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goes, it does not disappear.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So one of
the big solvents, a lot of

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organic labs, is also one that's
recently come under some

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specific EPA scrutiny. Crystal.
I think you're gonna be the

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expert on this. Tell us about
your part of the cover package.

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Krystal Vasquez: So my story
focuses on recent EPA regulation

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that was finalized the end of
April of this year, and

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basically the EPA banned most
uses of methylene chloride,

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which is more commonly known as
dichloromethane, in labs, the

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EPA is requiring them to do this
workplace chemical safety

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protection plan, one of the big
things that academic labs and

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EHS professionals were saying in
public comments before this was

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finalized, that this would
create a lot of havoc and a lot

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of extra work for them, and
might end up affecting the use

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of DCM or dichloromethane or
mesenchyroid in the labs

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overall. I think larger
universities are going to be.

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Cost effective. The problem
comes when you look at smaller

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universities that have limited
staff and limited financial

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resources and will probably have
to outsource a lot of this

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exposure monitoring. And so a
lot of the people I talked to

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from those schools were saying
that they will likely have to

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get rid of DCM in their labs.
It's a big unfolding story. The

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one thing

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Craig Bettenhausen: I want to
understand a little bit these

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changes from EPA. Are they
changes in how people are

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handling the solvents, or is it
mostly a change in paperwork?

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Krystal Vasquez: I would say
that it leans towards a change

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in paperwork for research labs.
Specifically, it's requiring

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basically and a plan to talk
about what you would do in case

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of exposure, they're setting new
exposure limits. You need to set

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up a regulated area, and so you
need to talk about that in your

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documentation. Again, the
biggest thing is the exposure

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monitoring, which is also
technically on the side of

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paperwork, but it does require
actual labor from the

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researchers and H and S staff to
actually get that set up.

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Craig Bettenhausen: And you
know, from EPA is the big

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concern here environmental
impact or human health exposure.

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Krystal Vasquez: The main thing
that the EPA is focusing is the

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human health impact. So DCM has
a lot of health effects. It's

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carcinogen, and it has caused
the death of people who have

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used it, typically for consumer
use, but it does have that

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potential health effect. So
they're hoping that with these

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new protection programs that the
EPA is setting up that it will

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reduce the likelihood of those
things happening, but it does

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have consequences in terms of
like actually setting up those

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plans and making sure that it
doesn't necessarily interfere

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with the research.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So I have a
very personal interest in this,

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because when I was in the lab, I
was the person who was in charge

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of going down to the central
room and refilling drums from a

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giant drum. And for me, that was
like literally sitting on top of

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a 55 gallon drum of
dichloromethane, pumping it into

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a smaller bottle. How dangerous
is dichloromethane exposure? I

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think for a lot of chemists in
our audience, they've been

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exposed to a lot.

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Krystal Vasquez: I think that if
you're using it the way you're

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supposed to, in a fume hood with
the right PPE and all of that,

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your exposure should be smaller
than if you were saying using

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Bethlehem chloride for like, a
paint thinner, it used to be in

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paint thinners until not too
long ago. I don't know how to

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answer that exactly, but I do
think that, like academic labs

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and research labs in general,
are very unique places that have

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a lot of different control
methods and a lot of safety

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protocols set up. So, yeah, I
would say that if you're

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following your Chemical Hygiene
plan, that an EHS person has set

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out with their expertise, that
you should be fine. I think that

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what the EPA wants is just to
lower those exposure limits so

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that you're just even safer. You
know?

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Leigh Boerner: I mean, I would
say that it's really, really

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difficult to figure out an
individual's risk from that just

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because of what Krista was
saying, like, how are you using

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it as your hood on, how much are
you using it, blah, blah, blah.

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I mean, for me, when I was in
graduate school, dichloromethane

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was one of the few things that
my molecules would go into,

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because I made kind of big
molecules, and sometimes they

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had metals in them, and so I
went through a ton of

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dichloromethane, and it was the
same for a lot of people in my

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lab. I can't imagine not being
able to use dichloromethane. It

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would really, it would have
really messed up my research.

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Personally, one source

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Krystal Vasquez: I talked to
said it's basically a whole

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paper's worth of research to try
and find a different solvent for

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a reaction. So this is going to
take, like, hours and hours and

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hours of work for these
researchers who are either

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voluntarily choosing to get rid
of DCM from their labs or are

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being forced to by the
circumstances of their

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institution.

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Craig Bettenhausen: And deckler,
methane is kind of a superstar

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solvent in some labs, but it's
just one of several solvents.

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And Lee, your story looked at a
much larger category of solvents

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in a chemistry lab, it feels
like you go through a ton, like

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literally hauling these things
in and out of the lab by the

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drum. But how do the volumes
used in research labs compare

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with the volumes used in
industrial applications, and is

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it for the same kinds of uses?
Well,

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Leigh Boerner: an industrial lab
and an academic research lab are

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very, very different places. I
will say that just for my own

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sake, I was curious about All
right, so, you know, we figured

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out, you know, this hazardous
waste that's coming out of

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academic labs. How does it
compare to the entire amount of

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waste, like from a particular
year? And it was very, very

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small. It was 0.005% Yeah. In
2021

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Krystal Vasquez: Okay,

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Leigh Boerner: so that is, like,
I don't know what's smaller than

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a drop in the bucket, a nano
drop in a mega bucket. So it is

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a tiny, tiny amount. But what
the important part is, according

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to Adelina vuckova, who is the
director of the ACS Green

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Chemistry Institute. When I told
her the numbers, she was like,

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Okay, well, but then she also
said, Well, what's important

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here is teaching graduate
students how to sub in different

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solvents, so it's not
necessarily the total amount

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that academic labs are making.
It is the learning process that

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students are going through.
Because, you know, when those

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students graduate, when they
leave, they're going to

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industry, you know, they're
going to teach their own

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academic lab. They're going on
to other places, and many people

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hope, including a lot of people
in industry, that they will take

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this kind of knowledge with them
and then apply it

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Craig Bettenhausen: later on. I
guess there's industrial labs

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and there's also like industrial
scale synthesis.

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Leigh Boerner: Yes, what I'm
speaking of is industrial scale

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synthesis, not necessarily like
a research lab. But you know,

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the part that actually starts
making the drugs and scales

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these reactions up, you know,
huge, huge amounts when they

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have to make huge, huge amounts
of drugs, right? And so that's

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where the volume comes in with
halogenated solvents. You know,

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what is the fate of some of this
waste? 28.32% is incinerated.

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18.97% is used for fuel
blending. That means that it's

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used to basically power cement
kiln, and 45.83% is bulked.

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Yeah,

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Craig Bettenhausen: I saw the
word bulked in your story, and I

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read it a couple times, and
still it's a strange phrase. It

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seems like it's an ambiguous
term all by itself.

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Leigh Boerner: Yeah, it's
completely ambiguous. Because

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what does that mean? It
basically means that companies

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that deal with the hazardous
waste, they take waste from

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different sources. So that means
that this school gave this here,

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that one across town made this
much. They basically combine it

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and put it in a bigger bucket,
say, like a tanker car or

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something like that. As far as
what I've been looking at, which

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is the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, data RCRA is what

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they call it. According to the
rickra manifests, that's kind of

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the end of the road, as far as
what you can see. But that goes

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on to be either incinerated or
used for fuel blending or etc,

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etc, somewhere else. So that
means that as far as my analysis

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of this data goes, What's being
burned, either incinerated or as

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fuel, is more than what I'm able
to pull out. So

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Craig Bettenhausen: crystal, the
EPA, banned a lot of uses of

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dichloromethane a few years ago.
Paint strippers is the example

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that a lot of people know of and
that we covered. How does this

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new ban differ from the older
ban. Yeah,

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Krystal Vasquez: so the initial
ban was just paint strippers, I

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believe commercial use paint
strippers. This time, they've

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kind of made it more
comprehensive. So they've banned

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all consumer uses of DCM, and
most commercial and industrial

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uses of DCM, with the exception
of, I believe, 30, which

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includes using it as a
laboratory chemical.

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Craig Bettenhausen: And this
isn't even the first time that

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we've taken some solvents,
specific solvents, out of a

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organic chemistry labs, right?
This isn't your story. There's

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some other previous solvents
that used to be used a lot, and

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now they're not right,

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Krystal Vasquez: right? Benzene
is, I believe, one of the

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biggest examples, and one that I
heard about repeatedly. Benzene

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used to be ubiquitous in the
lab, and now it's not used as

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widely anymore. So I think the
general consensus that I reached

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in my story was that it is
possible to reduce the use of

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DCM despite how popular it is
right now, I think it's just

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going to take a lot of work and
a lot of rethinking of reactions

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and rethinking what your
chemistry needs, and also

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rethinking the different hazards
that you have to like balance

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out as you're deciding which
solvents to use in your

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chemistry.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So reducing
solvent waste is a big part of

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green chemistry. It's it's in
more than one of the original 12

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principles of green chemistry,
which was published about 25

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years ago. This far into that
movement, how much progress has

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been made and what's coming down
the pike. As far as new

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approaches to these solvents,
there

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Leigh Boerner: are other
solvents that you can use that

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are a little bit more eco for.
Friendly, like, I don't know one

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called the universal solvent
water. It is difficult to use

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water for some types of
reactions, but, you know,

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there's a lot of research going
on into doing chemistry and

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water. There's also been a lot
of research into what makes a

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more environmentally friendly
solvent. GCI has actually a

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guide on replacing your solvents
with greener alternatives.

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There's a lot of research into
going, Okay, I need a solvent

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that does X. Look at this table,
okay, these types of solvents do

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X. Maybe I can use one of those
instead. So that's kind of where

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it is. I

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Krystal Vasquez: think one thing
that's important to point out

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is, regardless of whether you're
replacing a solvent because of

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regulation or to try and get a
greener solvent, you have to

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really think about the potential
health effects and the safety

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issues that come with it. So one
thing that I found in my story

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that some people are concerned
about is that in order to

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replace DCM, they might end up
replacing it with a solvent that

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has different hazards, so maybe
it could cause lab explosions,

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or maybe it's another solvent or
another compound that might be

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on EPA list. So I think that's
just something to keep in mind

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as people are doing their lid
searches, is to really do their

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homework and make sure that
they're not replacing one

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solvent with something that
could be worse another way, you

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know, yeah,

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Craig Bettenhausen: the old
regrettable substitution. So is

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there anything else in either or
both of your stories as you

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worked on this that you thought
was really interesting and just

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didn't make it into the written
piece. One

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Krystal Vasquez: thing that came
up a few times, and I didn't get

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to include it, was the worry
that dichloromethane is going to

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get more expensive because of
this regulation, because the

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manufacturers are also they have
to comply with this regulation

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as well. And so I haven't looked
into where DCM is produced, or,

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like, how much of it is US
based? But I think there was

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definitely concern amongst
academics talking about, like,

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is this going to cost me more,
and if I'm at a small school,

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will I be able to afford it,
regardless of if we can set up

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the monitoring program and do
all the other things with the

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workplace chemical protection
program, something

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Leigh Boerner: else crystal that
I wondered about too, is okay,

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you say, maybe small schools
just might have to say, Okay, we

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just can't use it, because we
can't keep up. We can't, you

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know, have somebody dedicated to
just like, figuring out these

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regulations. Is that going to
affect the recruitment for

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professors? So you think, you
know, professors, like, uses a

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lot of DCM for their research.
I'm not going to go work at this

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school. They say, I can't use
DCM. I'm going to go work at

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this other school. I

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Krystal Vasquez: couldn't really
gather how much of an impact it

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would have like on student
recruitment. I think that when

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you work at a primarily
undergraduate institution or

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other liberal arts schools that
you are competing with, bigger

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schools in general. So that
competition is always going to

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be there. So I don't necessarily
know if this is going to add to

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it, but it could be just another
factor of like, if someone wants

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to do a very specific type of
chemistry that needs DCM, they

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might end up going to another
school. So

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Craig Bettenhausen: Lee, what
about you?

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Leigh Boerner: I have a whole
section of data that did not

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make it into the story, and that
is on specific

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Craig Bettenhausen: schools are
we going to get in? We're going

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to name names.

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Leigh Boerner: One thing you'd
have to remember is, the bigger

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the school, the more students it
has, the more waste it's going

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to make, if you're talking
about, you know, academic, lab

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research, just for instance, in
2021 the biggest producer of

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hazardous waste was the
University of California, San

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Diego, and that was 142.35
metric tons. And then the next

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one on the list is the
University of Michigan, at

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around 100 tons. So that's a
pretty big jump. But the other

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kind of interesting thing about
this data is that sometimes the

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same schools are at the top, and
then one year, it won't appear

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in the top 20 at all.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Well,
Crystal and Lee, thanks for

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00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:20,540
diving deep on this with us.
There's a lot here, and I

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00:19:20,540 --> 00:19:22,100
enjoyed reading the stories and
enjoyed

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Leigh Boerner: talking with you
about it. Thanks a lot. Craig.

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Yeah, thanks. So

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Craig Bettenhausen: people can
find me on social media, as at

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00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:30,200
Craig of waffles, and in most
places, where can they find you

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00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:30,380
all,

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00:19:30,740 --> 00:19:34,760
Leigh Boerner: I am on Twitter
or x or whatever, formerly known

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00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:41,860
that thing at Lee JK Berner. I
am on mastodon. I don't remember

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00:19:41,860 --> 00:19:44,260
what the heck it is. You can
find me on LinkedIn, but I went

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00:19:44,260 --> 00:19:50,200
over there birds homing pigeons
will find me. You just have to

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00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,320
know what kind of treats to get
them. But I do have cats. They

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00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:54,040
might have contact.

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Krystal Vasquez: I am
occasionally on Twitter, slash x

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00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:03,240
at caffeinated Chris the last.
It's called K, R, y, s, and I am

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00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:07,260
on blue sky at K desk. You can
find me there. Well,

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00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:09,840
Craig Bettenhausen: you can find
crystal and Lee's cover stories

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00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:13,320
about solvent wastes and the EPA
updated regulations around

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00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:17,160
methylene chloride on CNNs
website, or in the July 15 print

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00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,160
issue of CNN, we put links in
the show notes along with the

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00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:22,520
episode credits. If you'd love
to know what you think of CNN

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00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:25,160
uncovered, you can share your
feedback with us by emailing

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00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:30,980
cenfeedback@acs.org This has
been cn uncovered, a series from

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00:20:30,980 --> 00:20:33,860
cn stereochemistry. Stereo
chemistry is the official

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00:20:33,860 --> 00:20:36,560
podcast of chemical and
Engineering News. Chemical and

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00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:38,780
Engineering News is an
independent news outlet

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00:20:38,780 --> 00:20:41,140
published by the American
Chemical Society. Thanks for

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00:20:41,140 --> 00:20:46,420
listening. Bye.