Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Organic Chemistry Forum => Organic Chemistry Forum for Graduate Students and Professionals => Topic started by: Silica on December 15, 2006, 02:45:00 PM
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Rachael Ray on Food Network has a show where she prepares a meal in 30 minutes. Yes, it's true she accomplishes most of her time savings by not washing the vegetables during that 30 minutes, but I learned a useful lab trick by watching her show.
Rachael keeps a big mixing bowl on the counter where she's working, her "garbage bowl", and that saves her a lot of trips back and forth to the wastebasket.
I had always kept a wastebasket near the bench and a beaker or soething for disposable pipets, but keeping another container (a 3 lb. coffee can or a 1 L beaker works nicely) for vials, lids, rubber bands, TLC plates, Kimwipes, and all the other crap that tends to accumulate saves me a lot of time. One trip over to the lab debris can, and I'm done cleaning, pretty much.
Anyhow, I'm glad I found this part of the forum. I had been asking questions over in the organic homework section without checking well enough how these boards are organized.
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The glass and non-hazardous waste in my lab are pretty conveniently located, but I started keeping a jar in my fume hood to collect small amounts of waste solvents (like blank fractions from a column) and I like using that a lot. It's much nicer than emptying fractions two or three at a time into the big waste container.
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I have a non chlorinated waste bottle, solid waste tub (for finished columns and celite pads), a bowl for dirty glassware and contaminated sharps box in my hood. I have a "TLC graveyard" on my bench too, basically a big glass plate. I also cover the surface of the hood with tissue paper, so I rarely have to sweep up, I can just roll up the paper and dump it in the solid waste when it's looking a bit scummy.
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Rachael Ray on Food Network has a show where she prepares a meal in 30 minutes. Yes, it's true she accomplishes most of her time savings by not washing the vegetables during that 30 minutes, but I learned a useful lab trick by watching her show.
I do agree you do not have to wash vegetables in the lab :P
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I once had a colleague who kept a small fish tank filled with chromic acid to drop dirty glassware in to be cleaned overnight. He also dropped in dirty spatulas once and complained bitterly that someone stole them when they were gone the next day ;)