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UMass Boston is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to increase recycling efforts in its laboratories while testing new strategies for complying with environmental laws as part of a collaborative pilot program. Dubbed the New England Universities Project XL &endash; eXcellence and Leadership &endash; the site-specific initiative allows greater discretion in how hazardous waste materials are handled, and gives the University the opportunity to develop a comprehensive plan to address every aspect of how its laboratories handle hazardous chemicals.
The implementation of the project was marked by a signing ceremony on September 28th at Boston College. Representatives from the three participating schools&emdash;UMass Boston, Boston College, and the University of Vermont&emdash;attended the event along with officials from EPA Headquarters in Washington D.C., the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and the Vermont Department of Environmental Protection.
The primary aim of Project XL is to give universities such as UMass Boston greater flexibility for hazardous waste management through some changes in federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act requirements, which dictate how, when, and where hazardous waste materials are to be stored. The University will be required to adopt a rigorous environmental management plan (EMP) and to report on progress and measure performance of recycling efforts. The specific goal of Project XL is to increase recycling by 20 percent and decrease the amount of hazardous waste generated by 10 percent. Each university will provide to its laboratory workers initial training and information on the EMP and will continue such training throughout the life of the project. The information from the initiative will be used by the EPA to help redesign its current regulatory and policy-setting approaches.
John P. DeVillars, the EPA's New England administrator, expects substantial improvement in hazardous waste management from Project XL. "The cornerstone of this project is that by providing universities with greater flexibility for hazardous waste materials, we expect substantially improved environmental performance. As it is now, it can be very difficult for universities to comply with hazardous waste rules because they have so many laboratories in so many places doing so many different types of work. This project will give the labs much more discretion in how they handle their waste so that they can identify handling and disposal methods that are both safer and cheaper."
The laboratory project will run for four years. Other university laboratories in New England may seek to join UMass Boston and the other Project XL partners after the first fifteen months of the initiative.
For more information on the New England Universities Project XL, contact Zehra Schneider Graham, hazardous waste coordinator for the Office of Environmental Health and Safety and Project XL representative at UMass Boston, at 7-5445.