Gallon Drum Labeled Managing Special Hazards
You have just been hired as a National Laboratory’s Environmental, Health, and Safety Manager. You were pleased to see that the previous manager had disposed of nearly all of the wastes stored in the hazardous waste facility but noticed that there was an adjacent shed with a sign that read “Do Not Enter – Authorized Personnel Only.” You also noticed that the door was cracked open and upon shining a light inside, you saw:
- A cardboard box labeled “Asbestos (friable) – Insulation.”
- A large wooden box labeled “Portable Gauge, Cesium-137.”
- A 55-gallon drum labeled “Paint Chips – Pb.”
As you moved away from the door, you saw two large containers on the grass on the side of the shed:
- A 55-gallon drum labeled “PCB Transformers” (with obvious corrosion and oily liquid saturating the ground adjacent to the drum).
- An old 20-gallon plastic container marked “Pesticides – ???? unknown” (with obvious spillage on the ground).
A day after taking photos of these five items and emailing them to your boss, you get a voicemail from your boss asking you to meet her and the lab director the following week to present a plan to identify and dispose of these items and any contaminated soil adjacent to the shed.
Your Task: To ultimately dispose of these five items, describe (for each) how you would determine the physical, chemical, or radiological properties of the items in sufficient detail to assess their hazard level (toxicity, etc.) so that they can be accepted by a licensed disposal facility.
Note: You should be able to identify specific methods (chemical analysis, survey meters/instrumentation, monitoring devices, etc.). Provide URL links to commercial vendors that can provide testing, analysis, and instrumentation in the above identification.
Your response should be in APA format including a title page and a reference page. An abstract is not required for this assignment. The body of your paper (not including title or reference page) should be approximately 2-3 pages.