Advertisement

If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)

ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.

ENJOY UNLIMITED ACCES TO C&EN

Environment

The accidental education

July 9, 2007 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 85, Issue 28

The article "Using Accidents to Educate" saddened me in more ways than one (C&EN, April 30, page 29). Nowhere in the two accounts of pouring a solvent "into a sink" was there any mention of the environmental impact on the wastewater system, though "inappropriate disposal" may have been meant to imply it. In my grad student and postdoc labs in Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Montreal during the 1960s, we were recovering organic solvents or collecting them in a special container in the fume hood.

Maybe the grad student in Georgia was still in a learning mode in 1968, but a postdoc in Texas in 1996?

Karl Raab
Bratislava, Slovakia

Article:

This article has been sent to the following recipient:

0 /1 FREE ARTICLES LEFT THIS MONTH Remaining
Chemistry matters. Join us to get the news you need.