As a generator of a large quantity of hazardous materials -- any material that is ignitable, corrosive, reactive or toxic -- Penn State disposed of more than 90,000 pounds of hazardous waste last year.

Kate Lumley-Sapanski, a laboratory safety and waste disposal specialist in the University's Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said the University is making an effort to cut down on the amounts of hazardous waste that have to be disposed of by developing a waste-minimization plan, which is required by federal law.

One problem she found through a survey she took last fall was that people working with hazardous materials do not always know that they are hazardous. Part of the waste-minimization program is educating, Lumley-Sapanski said, adding that she hopes to alleviate this problem.

The amount of hazardous waste the University disposed of went down from 172,000 pounds in 1993 to 90,000 pounds last year almost half the amount. Although Lumley-Sapanski said the minimization plan could not take all the credit for this reduction, it played a large part.

When a professor has a hazardous material that must be disposed of, a form must be filled out giving the location and type of the chemicals. The form is sent to the Office of Environmental Health and Safety, and within two days special waste handlers pick up the materials, Lumley-Sapanski said.

Samuel Totor, a special waste handler, said he takes the hazardous materials to a waste shed located near the flower gardens where the materials can be kept for 90 days. Totor wears coveralls and nitrile gloves that are resistant to hazardous chemicals. All the bottles he picks up must be closed tightly.

Within 90 days, a hazardous waste disposal company comes to collect and dispose of the materials. Lumley-Sapanski said the University is generally charged about $2 per pound of waste that is removed. When the material has been destroyed, the University receives a certificate of destruction from the facility where the material was destroyed, she said.

Sometimes a chemical can be reused by other professors. These materials can be held in the waste shed indefinitely,Lumley-Sapanski said, because they are not considered waste. She said copper and silver compounds, xylenes, pesti-cides and photographic chemicals are in demand by professors and are redistributed instead of thrown away. This process is part of the waste-minimization plan. About 1,100 pounds out of the 90,000 pounds of hazardous waste were redistributed last year.

Another part of the plan is micro-scaling in organic and inorganic chemistry labs, Lumley-Sapanski said. For example, instead of mixing 500 milliliters of a chemical with 500 milliliters of another chemical, students in labs may use just one milliliter of each. Micro-scaling has cut down the amount of hazardous waste picked up from those classes by 95 percent.

Lumley-Sapanski said the Office of Environmental Health and Safety bulks compatible chemicals together to cut the volume of hazardous waste removed from the University. By bulking chemicals, individual bottles of chemicals that take up more space do not have to be used. She said this bulk-packing has reduced the total volume of hazardous waste by 20 percent.

"But we can't do that for everything," she said, explaining that it would be too dangerous and the facilities do not make it possible.

The final part of the waste-minimization plan is encouraging chemical substitutions, such as using alcohol thermometers instead of mercury ones, which are very expensive to dispose of.

Lumley-Sapanski said there is room for improvement in the waste-minimization plan.