Chemical Waste will not be Another Research Achievement

 Scientific researches are usually carried out with different perspectives in variety of study fields including Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Biology, Medicine, etc. Most of the practical activities are conducted in equipped laboratories consisting of many chemical and physical materials. Enormous effort, money and time would be consumed whether it is going to be successful or not. Whatever happens at the end, the ultimate goal of such a hard work is to serve something better to the humans.

However, as any  of the modern human acts, scientific research activities are also capable of causing some unexpected, harmful environmental damages. The major issue as I see is unplanned hazardous waste disposal.

 For example, consider heavy metal trapping studies to invent a new, accurate waste water treatment plant. In such a case it is necessary to prepare and treat with several metal ion solutions under number of different parameters to optimize the system. For testing, hazardous metals such as Pb, Ni, Cr, etc are mostly tested and prepared solutions have to be thrown away after each test. Further, during washing the apparatus, another amount of chemicals would be washed away.

 According to my knowledge, in our country many of the laboratory systems do not have proper treatment procedures for such drastic chemicals or the existing ones are not well maintained. On the other hand, typical waste treatment systems won't work with laboratory waste. It is true in laboratory scale we do use very tiny concentrations yet, the continuous addition and the toxic density may cause a long term, critical damage. In here it is described only a tiny part of one large research of many for clarification. In real case, chemical varieties and amounts are much more wide-ranging so that the effect is massive.
 
 If these chemical waste (liquid/solid) gets contact with the water streams or soil then that may cause many unpredictable outcomes sometimes we cannot even find out the root. Someone may think this is related to Chemistry field as by name also it is related to chemicals. Unfortunately, usage of chemicals is not limited to one field of study.

 Truly, it not practical to prevent such outcomes but, those can be minimized if we pay an adequate attention. Here, I have some suggestions that we can implement in our local laboratory systems.

1. Separately collect the solid and liquid waste in the labs so that those can be utilized for waste treatment system testings.
2. Reuse of possible chemicals.
3. Try to use very low concentrations or limit the volume scale.
4. Implementation and proper maintenance of laboratory waste treatment systems.
5. Go for alternations for hazardous chemicals as possible.
6. Educate the researchers and the new comers.

 Today, in Sri Lanka attention towards the scientific researches has been upgraded as people have identified the real value of such investments. Meanwhile, it is important to keep safe our existing environmental values and take prompt action to minimize the current damage. If not compared to the real research achievements ultimately we are originating much more losses.