Tangentially related, but a good story:
At an ACS meeting about 20 years ago, one of my organometallic colleagues at a good-sized university told me he used to get rid of their mostly-used-up and/or suspect bottles of akyllithiums during off-hours by tossing them into the river adjacent to campus and throwing rocks at the bottles. Clearly, this is not a procedure he learned in his HAZWOPER training class.
I assume 500 mL bottles are fairly buoyant, and, not suprisingly, one night he had one that floated out of rock throwing range into the evening darkness. He clearly couldn't watch the bottle and try to follow it downriver, and he started dwelling on how Bad It Would Be if the bottle washed up on shore somewhere only to be discovered by a young child. So he reluctantly swam out into the river at night and retrieved the floating bottle. Not sure what time of year it was or the water conditions, but clearly he did realize he was piling stupid on top of stupid.
I suspect he found a better disposal method after that experience.
Rob Toreki
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For us, the bigger challenge is educating researchers to use dewars rated for their cryogenic liquid and that Thermos bottles don't meet those guidelines.
No video, but I recall reading this story a while back about someone trying to get rid of a thermos with dry ice in it after the lid got stuck. I have no idea if this is a true story or made up:
Jeff
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