Have you considered contacting a nearby university chemistry lab or
medical school to help with the disposal? For the medically related fluids
which you aren't sure about, one of the professors is bound to know
what the substance actually is. The labs that deal with more noxious
chemicals have all the required fume hoods and other protective
equipment needed to open bottles without killing themselves. They would
also have the proper equipment and other chemicals needed to test what
your bottles actually contain. As for disposal, research universities are
used to having to dispose of small quantites (I am assuming that you are
talking about several bottles of random materials as opposed to several
50 gallon drums of stuff) of really bizarre chemicals - mostly the
by-products of experiments, so they may not be what environmental
disposal companies are used to dealing with (and a large portion of their
fees are probably some standard fee whether you are disposing of 10
ounces or 100 gallons).

        Besides, your average chemistry grad student would respond
with "Cool," if you asked her to determine what the substance was,
dispose of it if it is dangerous, and return the container to you.

                                                        Angela Putney
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