A while back someone asked me this question: what happens after you have used a bunch of microbes? How do you dispose them? Ah, usually when we are undergrads all of these are handled by the lab staff—they instruct you to put in a blue trash bag labelled “biohazard” after each lab session. Sometimes they even let you leave them on the bench with all the utensils, where they will pick up and clean themselves.
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| Not as tiny as this one. |
However when we are in postgrad—or using professors’ lab—it’s every man/woman for himself. Disposal of microbes are the own researcher’s responsibility. So as we were discussing, several solutions come up.
“Boil them, sterilize them!”
“What if they are spore-able microbes?”
“Then...boil them in a very long time?”
“Do they die?”
I don’t have the answers to these questions. So we left the lab with an issue still hanging (and a rack full of microbes on the bench, in case we mull over it that night and get an eureka). But then, after a bit of googling, I found a website offering a solution.
An ideal situation is to put them into a heat-stable biohazard bag and autoclave it (oh so that’s what the blue bag is used for!). After autoclaving it is suitable for disposal by trash.
Another alternative method is to use bleach—yes, your good-old friendly neighborhood normal household bleach Clorox. Make a one part bleach four parts water solution (20% Clorox) and saturate the plates with it. Leave it overnight to soak, before disposal.
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| Kills 99.9% of bacteria, it's super effective! |
There—as simple as that. Remember that bleach is corrosive and proper hand/face/body protection should be worn. Equipment should also be rinsed thoroughly afterwards.
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