We have a big problem in our lab. After detection of the PCR product by agarose gel electrophoresis which contained the carcinogenic Ethidium Bromide, we face the problem of getting rid of it. We don't have a method for removal of the biological hazards.
Note that nowadays there are safer alternatives to EtBr on the market. After considering costs and efforts that came with safety and prevention measures related to working with EtBr. we decided to start using Biotium's GelRed, which is a safer alternative stain for EtBr. We found that after a short period of optimisation (be sure that no EtBr contamination is left on your materials) it even has the advantage of having the same sensitivity of SybrGreen, which can be handy when you need to optimise RT-QPCR conditions.
Article Elimination of amplification artifacts in real-time reverse ...
Charcoal filtration is the best method....just re-melt the agarose and pass it through a filtration unit containing charcoal. You can dispose off the filtrate.
gel extraction kit may serve the purpose.As during gel extraction the sliced band from the etbr loaded agarose gel are passed through the column that binds the DNA .So this reduce the hazard.
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As Rene Christena says, yes charcoal filtration is the preferred method for EtBr decontamination. Do check your flow through under UV to confirm that the EtBr has been removed. There are also "S&S Extractors" available from VWR (and other vendors I'm sure) that are essentially the same thing. You can also use chemical deactivation by the Lunn & Sansone method, but it is not preferred. This method uses hypophosphorous acid and sodium nitrite to deactivate the EtBr.
Note that nowadays there are safer alternatives to EtBr on the market. After considering costs and efforts that came with safety and prevention measures related to working with EtBr. we decided to start using Biotium's GelRed, which is a safer alternative stain for EtBr. We found that after a short period of optimisation (be sure that no EtBr contamination is left on your materials) it even has the advantage of having the same sensitivity of SybrGreen, which can be handy when you need to optimise RT-QPCR conditions.
Article Elimination of amplification artifacts in real-time reverse ...
DO please check with your Institution's Safety Officer. You will very likely find that there is a legislated way to do this and you don't want to fall foul of it.
Personally I don't allow re-melting of EtBr-containing gel in my lab because I'm concerned people may breathe in the material in the resulting steam.
Good Luck
G
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