MY RESEARCH | ADVANCED SEARCH | UNC HOME
Office of Animal Care and Use
Phone: (919) 966-5569
Fax: (919) 966-8429
CB 7193
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7193
iacuc@med.unc.edu
As with other forms of anesthesia, you may not use expired gas anesthesia. Please check all bottles for expiration date. Waste gas anesthesia, whether expired or not, should not be allowed to "off-gas" through a hood and into the atmosphere. Instead, a request should be put in for the Department of Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) to come get the bottle/canister. These requests can be submitted online at https://www-s3.ais.unc.edu/HazMat_Pickup/.
As a bottle of ether empties and more "headspace" is created, the potential for explosive peroxide formation increases. Fortunately, ether does not readily form peroxides unless it's concentrated by evaporation, and most ether solutions have inhibitors that should keep peroxide formation low (at least until the expiration date). Regardless, one should date the bottle of ether when opened and dispose of the ether in one year. Environmental Affairs personnel will pick up expired bottles of ether, if an online request is made (see address above).
Bottles of ether that are empty but not expired can be disposed of by the user after triple-rinsing. For empty expired bottles, please submit an EHS request so we can safely dispose of them. Bottles of other gas anesthetics that are empty may also be triple-rinsed and disposed of.
Carcasses of animals that have been anesthetized with ether should be allowed to vent in a fume hood before they are bagged for disposal. Carcasses of animals that have been anesthetized with other gas anesthetics (isoflurane, metophane, halothane) may be disposed of immediately.
To re-iterate: Please let EHS dispose of waste anesthetic gases, whether they are expired or not. Do not "off-gas" waste anesthetic gases through the hoods to the atmosphere.