Strontium chloride (CAS 10476-85-4): storage and disposal

In a school prep room it normally lives in a box of flame test salts with the lithium, sodium, potassium and copper chlorides, and the box often goes on a bench or trolley for each lesson. That is where lids come off and crystals get wet. Return the jar to the general shelf in a dry, labelled store, with the date of receipt on the label and food grade supplies kept apart. Because the salt can cause serious eye damage, the jar should be closed straight after use and not left open on a lab bench. Keep the flame test salts in separate, individually labelled containers.

Free-flowing white crystals are the normal state. A flame test box that has stood in a humid room can show crystals that have clumped, stuck to the glass or gone damp, and the hexahydrate can take up moisture until the contents turn pasty. Look at the cap, because a crust of white salt there marks a jar that has been opened wet. A label that has smudged, a loose spatula left in the jar and mixed crystals from a shared spoon are common in older flame test boxes. Stock that has been contaminated from a shared spatula should be set apart and described as mixed.

We arrange this by specialist collection. We do not publish a drain or general waste route for any chemical. It is normally packed in a general laboratory pack with compatible chemicals.

Flame test boxes are the awkward case because several look-alike salts are stored together. Each jar should be read, identified and listed as its own item, never emptied into another jar to tidy the box. Strontium chloride is hazardous waste and is normally collected under 16 05 06* in a lab pack or 16 05 07* outside one, though the producer classifies the waste. If a jar has gone damp or pasty, say so and leave the cap tight with the jar upright. It must not go into a sink, a drain, general waste or a skip, and no one should try to treat it first.

Usually held as: hexahydrate.

Tell us the container size and how many you hold. An estimate is enough to start with, and some items cannot be priced until someone has looked at them.