I have a similar situation and here's how i solved it:
All my scrollable elements get the class scrollable.
$(document).on('wheel', '.scrollable', function(evt) {
var offsetTop = this.scrollTop + parseInt(evt.originalEvent.deltaY, 10);
var offsetBottom = this.scrollHeight - this.getBoundingClientRect().height - offsetTop;
if (offsetTop < 0 || offsetBottom < 0) {
evt.preventDefault();
} else {
evt.stopImmediatePropagation();
}
});
stopImmediatePropagation() makes sure not to scroll parent scrollable area from scrollable child area.
Here's a vanilla JS implementation of it:
http://jsbin.com/lugim/2/edit?js,output