The Hazardous Materials Team (HazMat) manages various types of waste on campus such as regulated and non-regulated chemical waste, biohazardous waste, universal waste, and used oil. 

We are required to submit a Biennial Report to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD).  GA Tech generated 46.7 tons of regulated chemical waste in 2023. That is all that is reported to those agencies, but we also generated 18.5 tons of non-regulated chemical waste, and approximately 4,053 boxes of biomedical waste. As of November 2024, GA Tech generated 43.5 tons of regulated chemical waste, 38.2 tons of non-regulated chemical waste and about 4,000 boxes of biomedical waste.

The first step in the management of waste is a declaration that a material is a waste. The simple meaning is that existing material is no longer needed. At that point, the waste generator will declare that the material is waste. 

A waste determination must be made at the point of generation. A hazardous waste is a waste which exhibits one or more of the characteristics of ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity or is listed as acute hazardous or toxic waste. 

The next step is to enter the waste into The Environmental Health & Safety Assistant (EHSA) software solution that GA Tech EHS uses to manage certain aspects of environmental health and safety. Personnel must be set up in EHSA and associated with the work location. There are several ways to enter the information into EHSA. The most efficient way to enter a virgin chemical is to ensure that there is a current chemical inventory for the location. The chemical inventory barcode can be used to track the chemical throughout its life at GA Tech.  If the chemical is a mixture, it can be described in EHSA in detail so that the HazMat team will know how to manage it once it is delivered to our HazMat Bay.  Biological waste must also be entered into EHSA.  The universal waste module is available and we will be encouraging its use soon.  The EHSA waste ticket is required for HazMat to pick up mixed waste materials, biological waste, and virgin chemicals which are not being tracked by a current chemical inventory barcode.

Once tickets are printed, if required, and placed on the outside of the correct container, a pickup request is made in EHSA.  HazMat strives to pick up waste materials within two weeks.  As our team grows, we have a goal of reducing the lag time between request and pickup.

Instructions on how to enter waste into EHSA can be found on the EHSA home page under Quick Links, HELP (User Handbook), WASTE Operations. Please contact a member of the HazMat Team with questions or comments.