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The way that I now recommend disposal of ethidium bromide is to treat it
with sodium hypochloride ( M. Armour; Recent advances in Chemistry and
Molecular Biology in Cancer Research 1993 p309-318). This quickly breaks it
down to harmless componds that can be safely disposed of down the sink. I
expect that propidium iodide would be detoxified in the same way. This
procedure saves masses of trouble and it means that every worker can take
responsibility for getting rid of their own waste.
Just placing some hypochlorite in the waste tank would be sufficient to
ensure that all of the toxicity had been destroyed by the time the waste is
flushed out. The paper recommends a 1/3 dilution of household bleach to
remove 34mg of ethidium in 2 hours. Lower concentrations of bleach would
work more slowly but should be OK for the concentrations used in flow.
Hope this helps
Dr. Dean R. Hewish,
Cell Biologist & Flow Cytometrist.
CSIRO Biomolecular Engineering,
343 Royal Parade, Parkville, 3052, Victoria
Australia.
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