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From 2014hs.igem.org

Safety Questions

Question: Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:

- Researcher Safety

- Public Safety

- Environmental Safety

Answer: In sewage water, there are many pathogenic organisms such as Salmonella (biosafety level 2), E.Coli (biosafety level 1), and S. Typhimurium (biosafety level 2). The only part of our project that actually includes wastewater is our controlled sequencing batch reactor buckets that only we handle. We take necessary precautions whenever handling these buckets (gloves, goggles, proper sterile technique), and they would never cause harm to anyone else unless the buckets somehow fell over and the fluid fell off of our rooftop (which shouldn’t happen). In that case, the worst that would happen would be a few people getting sick, probably mildly. If the project goes according to plan, our wastewater should be clean and free of these pathogens, so there wouldn’t be any risk to anyone.