Kevin,

    I work for three different hospitals in Chicago,  all of them throw old slides away in the broken glass containers.  We were more worried about it being a HIPPA issue (patient privacy....I'm guessing you're not in the States), but so far that hasn't been a problem either.

The only thing on our stainer we don't put down the drain is xylene, or the absolute that is xylene-contaminated. Copious amounts of water, and all that :-)

regards,

Chris