National Biosafety Month 2019: Biosafety beyond the lab
October is National Biosafety Month, a time to focus on your lab’s biosafety practices and policies. For 2019, EH&S is focusing on biosafety beyond the lab. We are encouraging you to reflect and…
Preventable fire alarm initiative
Seattle Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Division launched an initiative to avoid “false” (preventable) alarms.
Preventable alarms include:
Any activation of a fire alarm…
Replace your obsolete biosafety cabinet
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…
2019 Lab Safety Awards and Innovation Event winners
On December 9, 2019, EH&S hosted the Laboratory Safety Awards & Innovation Event to share new practices developed to enhance the culture of safety in UW research and teaching labs. Executive…
Should you pull the fire alarm after a chemical spill?
Following the announcement of the Seattle Police Department’s preventable fire alarm initiative (that will result in fines for false alarms starting January 1, 2020), EH&S has fielded concerns…
Two ways to submit a chemical waste collection request
Chemical waste generators at the University have two ways to submit waste collection requests:
Directly from your MyChem inventory
From the Chemical Waste Disposal page
You can use these…
Business continuity and recovery planning resources for labs and research spaces
The University’s Emergency Management and Office of Research have provided guidance to the research community to assist with business continuity planning. As a supplement to these resources and in…
Ergonomic tips for your home office
To reduce the risk of injury related to telework activities consider the following ergonomic tips when setting up your workstation:
COMPUTER SETUP
Image credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Set…
Reduce your risk of a nitric acid incident
Principal investigators planning to use nitric acid should follow safe use and storage practices, develop an SOP and provide documented training to all lab personnel.
The hazards…