Good housekeeping is an essential part of laboratory safety. Clean, organized, and well-maintained laboratory spaces reduce the risk of chemical exposure, spills, fires, sharps injuries, slips, trips, falls, and emergency access concerns. As part of the CORE laboratory inspection process, EHS will place increased emphasis on housekeeping practices that support safe, efficient, and well-managed research and teaching spaces.

Housekeeping is not simply about how a laboratory looks. It is about keeping work areas ready for safe research, preventing avoidable hazards, and making sure laboratories can respond quickly if something goes wrong.

Why Housekeeping Matters

Laboratories often contain chemicals, sharps, biological materials, glassware, compressed gases, electrical equipment, and specialized instruments. When these materials are not properly stored, cleaned, or managed, routine work areas can quickly develop hazards.

Strong housekeeping practices help laboratories:

• Reduce the likelihood of spills, exposures, and injuries.
• Keep bench tops and work surfaces available for active work.
• Prevent contamination of clean areas, equipment, and personal items.
• Maintain clear access to exits, emergency equipment, eyewashes, showers, fire extinguishers, and electrical panels.
• Improve chemical and equipment organization.
• Support a safer and more efficient research environment.

The EHS housekeeping guide emphasizes three core areas: keeping work surfaces and bench tops clean, properly managing sharps and biohazard containers, and keeping laboratory areas uncluttered and organized.

Laboratory Housekeeping Expectations

Laboratories should maintain housekeeping practices that support safe, organized, and efficient work areas. This includes:

• Keeping bench tops, counters, fume hood decks, floors, aisles, and other work areas clean, organized, and ready for safe work.
• Limiting bench tops and fume hoods to materials needed for active work.
• Returning chemicals, samples, tools, equipment, and supplies to proper storage when no longer in use.
• Removing empty, expired, obsolete, or unneeded containers from active work areas.
• Cleaning visible residues, splashes, and spills promptly using appropriate PPE and cleanup procedures.
• Reporting spills that cannot be safely managed by laboratory personnel.
• Placing needles, razor blades, scalpels, broken vials, and other sharps into approved puncture-resistant sharps containers immediately after use.
• Keeping loose sharps out of benches, sinks, floors, regular trash, and glassware containers.
• Replacing sharps containers when they are full or near full.
• Keeping floors and aisles clear of boxes, cords, debris, broken glass, stored materials, and other trip hazards.
• Maintaining clear access to exits, eyewashes, safety showers, fire extinguishers, electrical panels, and emergency equipment.
• Preparing for CORE inspections by removing non-active materials, wiping work surfaces, clearing access points, and removing trash or unneeded supplies.

Laboratories are encouraged to review and post the Laboratory Housekeeping Poster in lab spaces as a reminder of routine housekeeping expectations, including clean work surfaces, proper sharps management, and keeping floors, aisles, and access points clear.

Preparing for a CORE Inspection

Before a scheduled CORE inspection, laboratories are encouraged to walk through their spaces and address housekeeping issues where possible. This does not require a complete laboratory reset. Instead, laboratories should focus on obvious, correctable conditions that could affect safety or research operations.

Helpful preparation steps include:

• Remove non-active materials from benches and hood decks.
• Wipe down work surfaces.
• Check for visible residue or old spill material.
• Return chemicals and equipment to proper storage.
• Remove obsolete, empty, or unneeded containers.
• Confirm sharps are in approved sharps containers.
• Replace full or nearly full sharps containers.
• Clear floors, aisles, and emergency access points.
• Remove trash, debris, and unused supplies.

EHS Support

EHS recognizes that laboratories are active work environments and that housekeeping challenges can develop quickly. Our goal is to help laboratories identify practical improvements that reduce risk while supporting research continuity.

If your laboratory has questions about housekeeping expectations contact EHS for guidance. We are here to work with laboratories to identify reasonable solutions that support safe, productive research.