Hello,
Can anybody suggest me the best way to dispose Ethidium Bromide stained agarose gel. I've read few papers on the topic. Most of the paper recommended the treatment of the gel with Hypochloride (bleach) solution and draining off through the sink. But some expert argued that the treatment with bleach can give rise to other forms of mutagens...!!! Can I have your opinion on this.
Other methods like charcoal treatment, potassium permanganate treatment, Sodium Nitrate treatment seems to be a bit expensive approach.
Don't use EtBR... We use RedSafe(TM) by iNtRON Biotechnology
(Link: http://eshop.intronbio.com/index.php?var=Good&Good_no=474 ). We don't see any negative points about RedSafe as compared to EtBr (apart from the higher price).
There are also other substitutes for EtBR (see above) such as SybrGreen, etc.
If you want to use EtBR anyway: in our lab the EtBR-contaminated gels were collected in a closable plastic bin and were thereafter burned by a specialised company ("hazardous waste"). Liquid EtBr waste should be filtered by charcoal (1mg acitvated charcoal is sufficient for 50ml 1% EtBr). The used charcoal should then be burned as "hazardous waste". Do not wear latex gloves, since they are permeable for EtBr within 30 seconds or so. Use Nitril gloves instead.
If you want to save your environment and at the same time work with EtBr, its expensive :-) That's life...
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