AMA: 6 months as a chemist as a Hazardous Waste Chemist at haz disposal facility

you need to fuck off, you mentally challenged homosexual

4 years of school made me realize I wanted out.

phd would make me over qualified and I would have to stay in the school system that I hate.

ama more or less started here you fucking troglodyte

>How did you get the job?
I applied via a head hunter
>What was the application process like?
so your an environmental scientist?

yes?

do you have chemistry experience?

I took two 100 level classes.

but your an eagle scout?

yes.

hows Ballstate I got my sheepskin from there.

all the profs have some form of high functioning autism, and they don't know how to teach or communicate.

HAHA... your hired user

>Competitive?
fuck no, entry level job, just getting experience

>What UNI did you attend, and what was your prior experience?
Ballstate Indiana. I worked a few small jobs with the DNR, nothing permanent or that payed well.
> Could you have gotten another job?
yes but it would be about the same pay amount and I need the experiences from this job
>What is your pay about?
18hr, overtime pay and a half. so long as you want to work they will let you do overtime in my area.

>What is the one thing that can happen where the best course of action is to run as far as you can.

someone dumps a tanker of cyanide into the acid pit. my inner jew instincts tell me to run.

This isn't plebbit. Fuck off.

>How much have you personally been exposed to and how?

what? I have played with every chemical except (highly) radioactive material.

>Why aren't you answering any of the questions you gigantic faggot?

I was the one who posted I Realized how bad the egrish was. also chicks with dicks are the best and yes that makes me a fagot.

About the same as the Punisher, accesses and high amount of knowledge to use the things at my disposal that can really hurt people

fules, formaldehyde acetate ethanol etc..

What's the trickiest thing to dispose of? Most fun? Do you use microorganisms to break down certain things?

>What's the trickiest thing to dispose of
mercury, do too federal law in America we have to store it in its elemental state, so compounds must under go X or Y reaction. If elemental was spilled on things it is sent to us, we burn everything and catch the mercury vapors in filers.

>most fun
organic acids, we bulk them with flues and they make do cool reactions.

>Do you use microorganisms to break down certain things?
no, thats mostly in organics and we burn all organics.

Do drums normally get incinerated too, or is there a decontamination process afterward?
>environmental manager at a paper mill who sends off a lot of has waste

depends so long as we use the same product (or similar) in it we don't wash, we just reuse. In order for a drum to be considered clean empty a three times wash is required by federal (and international) regulations. Some products don't come out however, image 55gal of paint. Such instances the metal drum is crushed and sent to a recycling facility, what they do there I don't know, I assume melt it and deal with impurities. Clean plastic drums are thrown out as trash. if duty they are washed three times then thrown out. Waist water is treated in bulk with chemical reactions depending on its mixture.

Triple rinse is only required for acute haz though, right? Although I guess it can't hurt to be safe and triple rinse everything. What is your procedure for receiving a drum of unknown or uncertain substance? I sent off a mystery drum we guessed had caustic in it that turned out to be a hellish mixture of caustic, oil, pulp, ,starch, and bromide. Fucking thing tripped me over onto SQG too.

>Triple rinse is only required for acute haz though, right?
95% of all my products are considered acutely haz. I assume a single rinse is of for non haz, but I don't work in Drums, so my knowledge is limited.

>What is your procedure for receiving a drum of unknown or uncertain substance?
return to sender, not our job to identify substances.

> I sent off a mystery drum we guessed had caustic in it that turned out to be a hellish mixture of caustic, oil, pulp, ,starch, and bromide.
if it was labeled as such we likely sampled it too made sure it could be put into the caustic pit. If not you would have been fined and it would have been sent back too you. I assume I don't deal with brokering.

Yeah, we dont generate acute haz, so we rinse our stuff out once.
The drum in question was sampled for RCRA characteristics, and I more or less had to do some detective work to figure out which one of my assclown employees had cleaned up a caustic spill and decided the best place to put the material was a not-quite-empty drum of biocide. So we had a pretty good idea of what was in it, but couldn't be 100% sure. Since I didn't get fined I assume I had it right. Fired his ass though.
I guess environmental compliance is the highest priority at a haz waste facility. Do you get a a lot of surprise visits from regulatory agencies?

>Do you get a a lot of surprise visits from regulatory agencies?
YES... as per all environmental jobs 65% of regulations are good and make sense. 35% is pointless guff that makes the job 4X harder.

Our plant supervisors will survey the stuff that the company is worried about (practical things) and make us aware of problems. If we want to keep our jobs we fix them then and there.

State DNR will come once or twice a month. when we get the call over the intercom that X and Y manager needs to come to the office all work stops. It's a mad dash to make every small thing compliant...

Yeah most of the job is complying with the endless fed and state regulations. The state I'm in has a very zealous regulatory agency too. At least making paper is interesting.
What's the chemical/mixture you would never want showing up at your facility.

>What's the chemical/mixture you would never want showing up at your facility.
anything radioactive we can't handle. Rocket fuels like some hydrazines we cant as they will start a reaction instantly if we mix it with our other fuels.

other than that you name it we kill it.

If your asking what I am most apprehensive to working with. I would say the hydrofloric acids. I unpack a lot of them virgin and mixed.

Fastest I’ve seen a lab clear out recently was this. People just don’t read labels

>hydrofloric acids

that is pretty scary stuff desu

you have an acid pit? that's pretty cool

"this is Sparta"

Do tell more.

Wait wut happens?
T. not a chemist

If the cyanide is a salt such as potassium cyanide then you can handle it somewhat safely but if you put that in acid the cyanide forms hydrogen cyanide aka cyanide gas aka gas the jews