A Comparative Approach to Laboratory Waste Management

This chapter reviews different types of laboratories and their specialised functions, and the classes of wastes generated from diverse sources. It further classifies the wastes into categories based on comparative hazardous state: hazardous, less hazardous and non hazardous substances. The roles played by laboratories in advancing science and technology for research and development is highlighted. The geographical distribution of laboratories is such that more than 85% of the sophisticated state-of-the-art laboratories are found in the More Developed Countries (MDCs).