As part of its mission to meet the needs of staff, students and visitors, the Lory Student Center has now added sharps disposal containers to the roster of basic needs services it provides. The new containers offer convenience for those who need it and help reduce the risk of injury and infection to all, including the building’s environmental services team.

Containers are located on Level 100 of the LSC in rooms 184 and 186 (public restrooms near the Transit Center), on Level 200 in rooms 213-A and 213-B (public restrooms across from the Information Desk), and in Room 251-D (an all-gender restroom near Subway in the Food Court); and on Level 300 in Room 364 (an all-gender restroom) and rooms 365-A and 365-C (restrooms across from the LSC Reflection Rooms). 

“Our staff would occasionally find sharps while cleaning the building,” LSC Environmental Services Manager Nancy Cowley said. “We had to take great care in disposing them, which meant collecting them safely and delivering them to Environmental Health Services (EHS) to be autoclaved – sterilized or destroyed with intense heat.”

The new containers, which are designed to eliminate unnecessary contact, are made from rigid plastic and stainless steel and come with a full indicator for tracking contents. Waste can easily be inserted but cannot be accessed once inside the container. When containers are full, supervisory staff will collect the contents and store them in a larger bio-hazard container, which in turn will be picked up by Trilogy MedWaste, a national medical-waste disposal company, and destroyed. 

Research for the installation had been under way for several years, Cowley said, and following a student recommendation in the fall, the containers were ordered and installed this spring. For user consistency, the LSC chose the same sharps disposal containers already in use at the CSU Recreation Center and CSU Health and Medical Center.

Free, convenient services welcome visitors

In addition to the new sharps disposal service, the LSC provides a number of other additional free services that support a positive experience in the building and on campus:

• Period Products: In July of 2017, a campus-wide pilot program was rolled out to provide free period products in all public restrooms. In January of 2018, the program became a permanent free service throughout campus. In the LSC, all public female restrooms and all-gender restrooms, a total of 19 locations, have free period products available.
• Lactation Rooms: The LSC offers two comfortable lactation rooms on Level 300. The first is next to the Black/African American Cultural Center (B/AACC), and the second is next to the all-gender restroom across from Never No Summer (Nii-Cii-Biicei’i).
• Pocket Food Pantries – The four Rams Against Hunger (RAH) locations in the LSC are all Pocket Pantries (of various sizes) offering a limited selection of food items to all members of the Ram community. The larger Pocket Pantry spaces are located in the ALVS and in the ASCSU vestibule areas. The other two are smaller and are located in the Cultural Resource Center (CRC) kitchens. The ASCSU and ALVS locations carry Narcan and Fentanyl test strips.
• All-Gender Restrooms: Located on each of the three levels of the LSC, eight all-gender restrooms, two of which are offered in the remodeled Aspen Grille space, offer visitors an option while visiting the approximately 380,000-square-foot building.
• Adult Changing Table and Showers: As part of the LSC’s North End Renovation in 2023, and in addition to an existing shower in an all-gender restroom on Level 300, a restroom on Level 300 across from
• Never No Summer (Nii-Cii-Biicei’l) was remodeled to include an adult changing table and shower.
• Reflection Rooms: To provide a safe and quiet space for reflection, meditation, and prayer, the LSC offers two private spaces on Level 300. The rooms were designated for this service as part of the LSC’s 2014 South End Renovation project.

This year, RAH will partner with the Health Network’s CREWS Peer Education program and ASCSU to be a distribution point for free, emergency contraceptive products, such as condoms and morning-after pills. Other distribution points will include the SAFE office (formerly WGAC), located on Level 200 in the LSC, and the Health Network office in the CSU Health and Medical Center on Lake Street.