Iranian Journal of

Background and Objectives: Particular importance of hazardous wastes is due to having characteristics such as toxicity, flammability, corrosively and reactivity. Some of the chemical wastes due to having hazardous materials must be collected and managed in a proper manner, since they are potentially harmful to the environment. Owing to the fact that educational centers have important roles in developing countries, so the main objective of the present study was to investigate, hazardous waste management in chemistry laboratories of Ministry of Science universities, in Tehran, Iran.   
Materials and Methods: Study area of this research includes all chemistry laboratories in Tehran universities which were covered by Ministry of Science. To obtain the number of samples, based on Scientific Principles and identification formula, 64 samples were calculated. In addition, sampling was done by Stratified sampling. Validated checklists were used for data gathering. Data analysis were done by Descriptive statistics (mean, frequency and etc.) and inferential statistics (kruskal- wallis test).
Results: results obtained in this study indicate that Sharif University by obtaining the mean score of 60.5 and Tehran University by obtaining the mean score of 4.5-6 are placed in best and worst rank, respectively. Beheshty, Alzahra and Tarbiat Moallem univesities by acquiring the mean score of 20-28.5 have a same position in ranking table. 
Conclusion: Results show that most of the studied laboratories do not have any collection program and only 26.5 percent of them have acceptable programs.The separation and storing program observed in about 12.5 percent . Hazardous wastes' management in chemistry laboratory of Tehran Universities was not in good status. And from the standpoint of management, only 12.5 percent of studied cases are in good status, while 75 percent was in undesirable status.

Background and Objective: Identification of potential risks in laboratories and trying to create safe conditions for the staff is very important from different aspects. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the potential risks in the laboratories of three research centers affiliated to Iranian Fisheries Science Research Institute.

Materials and Methods: In order to assess and classify risks associated with working in the laboratories (11 laboratories of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea Ecological Research Center, 9 laboratories of National Shrimp Research Center and 2 laboratories of National Aquatic Organisms Processing Center), the method of "Failure Mode Effects Analysis" (FMEA) as well as statistical methods (concerning compare means) were used.

Results: The risk levels in all the laboratories of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea Ecological Research Center, except for benthos laboratory, could be evaluated as moderate or high. Only in the case of the sample preparation laboratory, significant differences between the values ​​of RPN before and after corrective action was observed. However, in this case the corrective actions have not been effective in decreasing the risk level. In most laboratories of National Shrimp Research Center, the corrective actions were effective in reducing the risk levels (with the exception of three laboratories). In both laboratories of National Aquatic Organisms Processing Center, after the corrective actions, the risk levels were sharply reduced.

Conclusion: Considering the high level of risk in many evaluated laboratories, appropriate corrective actions were proposed. But after the second-stage evaluation, it was realized that the proposed corrective measures in some laboratories (especially in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea Ecological Research Center) were notperformed sufficiently and hence the risk still was remained at critical or semi-critical level