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In the event of a spill or exposure to biohazardous materials, established response procedures and reporting requirements apply to all students and personnel of the UW. Researchers should review and share this information with laboratory personnel.

Help raise awareness of safe lab practices at the UW!

Lab Safety Awareness Week is sponsored by CSHEMA and held at academic institutions nationwide February 10-14, 2025. This event is dedicated to recognizing the successes of laboratory safety programs and offering ideas on how to keep our faculty, staff and students safe.

Be a Safety Champion in your lab and receive a prize!

Why should labs have a standard operating procedure (SOP) for a chemical when the manufacturer safety data sheet (SDS) is available? Both documents are required in the lab and offer different types of important information about a chemical.

Use the SOPs versus SDSs Focus Sheet to understand the types of information provided by each document and how to effectively use them as part of your laboratory’s chemical hygiene plan.

Chemical waste generators will soon have a new, faster way to submit a Routine Chemical Waste Collection Request. 

Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) is in the process of adding QR codes on all routine waste carboys to make submitting a collection request quick and easy: 

1. Scan the QR code on the carboy. 

The recent biological safety level recommendations from the CDC and NIH to reduce the SARS-CoV-2 risk group biosafety levels (BSLs) prompted the University of Washington Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) to review biosafety levels. 

The University’s 2024 Work-Related Injury and Illness Summaries are now available for download and posting. University units are required to download the summary for their location and post it from February 1 to April 30, 2025, in a location where personnel can easily access it.

The December 2024 version of the UW Laboratory Safety Manual (LSM) is now available for download or printing. It's time for principal investigators to review, bookmark, or print a copy of the updated LSM and make it available for all personnel and students in your lab.

Most Environmental Health & Safety teams relocated to the new Gateway building above the Sound Transit Link light rail station on Brooklyn Avenue NE between NE 45th and 43rd Streets.

Programs and services that moved include:

The University has over 950 active biosafety cabinets (BSCs), and about 150 have become obsolete due to safer design standards and the challenge of obtaining replacement parts. Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) recommends replacing obsolete cabinets before they fail to minimize disruptions to research projects.

The following resources are available to assist you with the purchase and replacement of BSCs: