Cleaning Schmitt Hall

05Jul09

GENERATIONS OF ATENEAN CHEMISTS have graduated from and left behind their mess in the laboratories of Schmitt Hall, the home of chemistry in the Ateneo de Manila University. Photo courtesy of Oui Buenafe

Written by Evan Yap. First posted on July 5, 2009

IT WAS TEN IN THE MORNING. Stomach empty and groggy from only two hours of sleep the previous night, I joined the ranks of chemistry majors and professors assembled in Schmitt Hall on a Saturday with the seemingly impossible goal of cleaning the labs.

“Doesn’t Schmitt Hall have maintenance staff to clean the labs?” you might ask. Yes, his name is Arvin. He sweeps floors, closes lights, windows, and fans. He shuts off the water and gas valves leading to the labs. But he doesn’t have the background in chemistry to handle hazardous chemical wastes. And though there are the lab technicians–Awel, Jim and Jun–who act as custodians of the chemistry building, they are too few to handle the dirty job of cleaning Schmitt Hall’s labs.

And so the Chemistry Department mobilized its students on a Saturday morning to help clean the labs.

First drafted into the department’s general cleanup service when I became a thesis student in my senior year, I was aware of the daunting tasks that lay ahead of us. Unidentified chemicals needed tagging, dirty glassware had to be washed, broken glassware had to be discarded, all the wooden desktops and drawers needed dusting and, after everything, the labs still needed to be reorganized. As I entered Schmitt Hall that morning, I took a deep breath to prepare myself.

“We found chemicals from 1980,” shared Keith as I walked into the thesis laboratory on the third floor where I had been assigned. Being a veteran of the chemistry program, I thought I had seen it all when it came to cleaning the labs. Once I stumbled across a beaker in my locker with a cockroach that had apparently decided to turn the container into its deathbed. But finding moldy chemicals over twenty years in open storage? That’s just rude and disgusting.

Aware of other possible surprises–or horrors–lurking in the labs, everyone wore face masks, latex gloves and aprons for protection. Honestly, it was the first time I had ever seen chemistry majors in full safety gear. Usually, we don’t wear gloves or face masks while performing experiments because we know what chemicals we’re using and how to best respond when accidents happen.

But this time was different. We were handling unknown chemicals. Some were waxy and stubborn to clean even with the help of Joy grease-stripping detergent. Others were deceiving in appearance–liquids that look harmless as water but hide a potentially lethal strike. With so many hazards, no one was really interested in hitching a ride out of Ateneo in an ambulance.

Assigned to washing glassware with unknown contents, my blockmate Haydee and I had one of the dirtiest jobs of the day. We came across all sorts of ghastly looking things–black tar, white crud, hardened wax, molds, crispy cockroach remains. A set of culture dishes covered in a thick gelatinous polymer film was handed over to us for washing. We both knew the person who worked on those dishes. Though we wanted to tell the guy to clean up his mess, there was nothing we could do–he was never coming back to the Chemistry Department. All we could do was scrub harder in frustration.

Supposedly, everyone working in Schmitt Hall’s labs is familiar with the general policy: do your thesis and clean as you go. But like a finger dragging across a dusty table, we exposed the sloppy streak of generations of Ateneo chemists who did not and probably still don’t clean up after themselves. Wanting to exact some sweet revenge, I read aloud the names of thesis students who had left labels on their glassware. “Hay naku, si ***** talaga pasaway!”

Others delighted in the treasures they found while going through other people’s mess. “If you find anything you need, take it,” said Ma’am Soma, the resident polymer materials guru. The students were quick to comply, placing tabs on bounties they eyed. Someone had collected so much that he was able to fill up his locker with scavenged items.

As the cleanup progressed, we discovered more strange and random things in the labs. A blender wrapped around in a filthy white plastic–clearly untouched for several years–was sitting alone in a wooden drawer. Below that drawer, a foam block that had lost its blue color from lack of use. And inside the last row of that column of drawers, I found a red brick that read “low cost waterproofing treatment.” In another column of drawers, more useful things emerged. Metallic discs used to sand and polish metals, a pressure gauge with some instructions, and more glassware to be cleaned and scavenged.

By noontime, Ma’am Soma, who was managing the cleanup in the thesis laboratory, said those magic words. “I think we can call it a day. You have food downstairs. Thank you for coming.” We quickly cleaned up ourselves before attacking the pizzas and chicken the department ordered for everyone. Hungry and tired, we cleaned up the food faster than we could ever clean Schmitt Hall’s labs.

“What do we do to the people who didn’t come today?” asked Dr. So, the chair of the Department of Chemistry. “Patayin!” jokingly remarked one of the seniors named Red. But we all knew their fate. They would come back for the next general cleanup because the day’s work was far from done.

As I bit down on a slice of pizza, I was relieved the cleanup was over. The labs now looked cleaner and had renewed functionality–you could actually see the desktops without the rows of abandoned beakers and bottles stacked over them. “How long do you think the labs will stay clean?” asked Haydee. Sarcastically, I told her maybe a year or two. “Di naman!” replied Haydee with a shock of disbelief. “Okay, five years,” I said to her, to which she nodded her head.

Rubbing my palms that had wrinkled and dried out from being soaked in detergent water the entire morning, I rolled my eyes in annoyance–only a culture of convenience and irresponsibility could have allowed such a mess to persist for so many years. Wanting to remind future generations of their role in keeping the work environment clean, I suggested to Haydee that we take a picture of the laboratory in its present, cleaned up state. We both laughed at the seemingly ridiculous suggestion–we both knew people just have that terrible habit of leaving spoils for others to clean.

After everyone had finished eating pizza and chicken, it was again time to clean up. Plastic bottles were placed in a plastic bag and thrown in the non-biodegradable bin. Discarded food was placed in a separate bag, away from the dry boxes of pizza which were neatly stacked over the trash bins ready for collection. “Don’t forget to segregate,” I thought of saying to everyone as they left the room where we had lunch. But they had already done it.

Filed under: Day in the Life   |  4 Comments
Tags: Ateneo, Chemistry, Environment, Schmitt Hall, Waste management