To: Mr. Walt Yando
From: Paul M. Lahti, for the Chemistry Department Safety Committee
Date: 5 March, 1991
Subject: Interfloor transport of hazardous items after pickup at stockroom

The safety committee at its meeting of 1 March, 1991 reconfirmed the existing practice that ALL PERSONNEL picking up all chemical and other hazardous items be required to leave them with Chemistry Stockroom personnel for interfloor transport via the dumbwaiter. This includes items claimed via the usual procedures after ordering from outside vendors (e.g., chemicals from Aldrich Chemical Company, etc .), as well as items checked out from stockroom stores. We understand that some people have been reluctant to incur the extra inconvenience of waiting for their items, but we are sure that all personnel will cooperate with helping you to enforce this directive in the interest of protecting not only people picking up items, but those passengers in elevators or bystanders in stairwells who have nothing to do with such items and want nothing to do with them.

Accordingly, we would be obliged if you would post copies of this notice in conspicuous locations, so that you and other stockroom personnel will be able to show clearly the source of your directive that all chemical and other hazardous items be transported by the dumbwaiter. In circumstances where the dumbwaiter is incapacitated for extended periods of time, cautious transport of less hazardous items in carrier buckets or in safely packed boxes should be allowed, unless you have serious questions about the hazards involved, in which case the Chemistry SafetyCommittee would back any decision to hold potentially hazardous items in the stockroom until safe transport conditions can be clearly defined in conversation with qualified personnel.

Thanks for your help in this matter.

Paul M. Lahti
Chemistry Department Safety Committee Chairman