I recently visited the Berkeley Nanolab. As I recall, the main waste products are either acids that are neutralized before being returned to the city sewer system, or exotic gases that are vented in dilute enough quantities to be safe.

To be clear, my comment isn't a callout; I unironically believe that it's explicitly being addressed. I'd just find a writeup around the subject interesting.

the campus runs its own sewer since 1867. Feeds into East Bay MUD.

I believe Sam avoids using anything that's super awful to deal with. There's well defined procedures for taking care of most chemicals that involve neutralizing them sufficiently to be flushed down the drain

Even the specifics there of what subset of materials gets you to making chips without disposal issues would be super interesting to me. It's a complex space to navigate, and shrouded a bit in mystery and trade secrets.

The "HF" doesn't stand for "high five!"?

HF is no big deal, haven't you watched breaking bad? Piece of cake, just use plastic containers. What could go wrong?

Its actually easy to dispose of, just neutralize with calcium carbonate (forms safe insoluble calcium fluoride) and dispose of down the drain or in the trash. Just don't get it in on your skin in the process. There are other options to neutralize as well.

I was surprised to find that 1% dilute HF is both adequate to purpose, and safe to handle.

Safe is relative. I'm such a genius that I managed to injure myself doing a reaction with a single reagent, namely, making amorphous plastic sulfur. I accidentally caught the sulfur on fire, you see. If you ever find yourself in this situation, resist the temptation to try to blow it out; you will regret inhaling near a sulfur fire.

Low concentration HF is frequently uses in artistic glass etching. With reasonable precautions it’s not more dangerous than cleaning your drain with caustic soda. Just don’t be stupid.

What matters is that if you splash some on your hand, you have time to rinse it off before the flesh melts off your bones.

Tl;dr Don’t listen to amateur forum advice, get informed at professional level.

Long: Please, In general I suggest for anyone dealing with chemicals to read the safety sheets to the very least and ask for professional advice.

Very often you will find second order effects at play (teratogenic, cancerogenic, allergogenic, er cetera), as well as dangerous surprises that can await you in reactions.

HF is a very nasty chemical that not only does funny stuff to your bones but can kill you making your breathing stop. Rinsing off your hand does not help in this case, you will need to get a specialised treatment in hospital. We lost two students at the University of Marburg in Germany to HF exposure.

Yet, I doubt that it was 1% HF solution, as may be purchased in any hardware store, that they were exposed to.