[Biostartup]

I've been working at a new lab for about a month and a half know and have a question about airborne exposure for my fellow chemists.

I work with HPLC's in a small-medium sized room with fair ventilation, we use acetonitrile as our gradient polar solvent that's fed into an OPEN waste container that just sits there next to the machines (small bottleneck) with no cap. This waste stream is probably at times up to 20% ACN.

What do you think my personal exposure is to airborne ACN because of this? I'm requesting a sealed waste system but am worried because I've already been here for 6 weeks. Do you think the rate of ventilation exceeds the rate of evaporation and keeps any exposure limited? 

[wildfyr]

Not something I personally sweat too much. The amount in the air at any given moment is very low.

[rolnor]

The vapor-pressure of this mobile-phase is low, I would not be worried. But offcourse its very easy to close the container.

[TheUnassuming]

I wouldn't worry about it much from a health standpoint.  That said, I think OSHA and EPA have some issues with open containers without some manner of controlled venting/exhaust.