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Chemical Waste Facility
University of Minnesota
501 23rd Avenue S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
This wonder of engineering and ingenuity is the home of the University of Minnesota Hazardous Material Services, the Chemical Waste Management Group, The Emergency Chemical Spill (HazMat) Team, and the Chemical Recycling Program.
The Thompson Center for Environmental Management (TCEM) was built to treat and store chemical and low-level radioactive waste for the University of Minnesota. The facility features the most advanced technology currently available. Its scope, the programs it accommodates, and its potential as a research site for pollution prevention makes it a premier project among academic research institutions.
The $8.1 million, 47,500-square-foot facility was designed to provide new processing and disposal capabilities as well as to consolidate activities and storage areas that had been managed in 20 different locations around the Twin Cities campus and the Rosemount Research Center.
The TCEM will process approximately 600,000 lbs of hazardous waste a year Ninety percent of the waste comes from the University System and 10 percent is collected from schools and agencies throughout the state.
Integrated Waste Management Facility:
- Benefiting the University
- Benefiting Minnesota and Its Communities
- What is hazardous waste?
- What TCEM does with the waste?
Benefiting the University
The Thompson Center for Environmental Management (TCEM) allows the University system to better meet its growing needs for safely treating, processing, and disposing of hazardous waste. Located close to the Twin Cities campus, the TCEM integrates into a single facility all of the University's hazardous and low-level radioactive waste management operations. It provides a central headquarters for the University's chemical-spill response team, adds specialized treatment and processing areas, and continuously monitored, secure storage.
With these treatment and processing capabilities, the University can recover more reusable chemicals, solvents, and precious metals. In addition by consolidating the existing operations formerly handled in many different locations, the TCEM enhances communication and reduces transportation time and management costs.
Benefiting Minnesota and Its Communities
The TCEM is a central processing and storage facility for more than just the University system. While serving the University's campuses and experiment stations throughout the state, the University's Chemical Safety Day Program (CSDP) is able to offer the TCEM's cost-effective hazardous waste management programs and disposal services to other educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and emergency response agencies as well.
Rural communities have already benefited by CSDP's ability to serve any community in the state at the same cost per pound for disposal as any metro county communities. From 2003 to 2006 the University's CSDP collected more than 200,000 pounds of hazardous waste from 400 participants. In 2005 alone, this program saved the taxpayers of Minnesota an estimated $100,000 in disposal costs.
What is hazardous waste?
Hazardous Waste is any nonusable substance that has the potential to harm people or the environment. More and more substances are being defined as hazardous to our environment. Many of these are familiar household items-fluorescent light bulbs, oil, antifreeze, batteries, smoke detectors, and paint. Others are more sophisticated materials-specialized gases, solvents, acids, and solids used in research, teaching, or clinical work.
Across the state, research institutions, high school laboratories, and farms generate large quantities of hazardous wastes. Common items targeted for disposal include science stockroom chemicals, science experiment waste, acids, ceramic glazes, photographic chemicals, inks, solvents, cleaning products, oil- or solvent soaked rags or floor absorbents, boiler treatment chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides.
Low-level radioactive waste comes from research, clinical, and agricultural activities where radiotracers are used to track biochemical processes or to perform diagnostic tests.
What TCEM does with the waste
- Chemicals that can be reused are recycled and redistributed throughout the University's state wide system.
- Chemical waste is treated on site to make it nonhazardous or processed for shipment to other facilities permitted for special incineration or treatment.
- Some solvents are distilled for reuse; some are shipped to other facilities for fuel-blending or incineration.
About 90 percent of the low-level radioactive waste is short half life waste that is stored for about two years until it decays to a nonradioactive state. The remaining radioactive waste is stored until it can be shipped to an appropriate disposal site.