Being Eco-Friendly in the Lab

Climate change is real, and the recent UN Climate Summit highlighted the fact that more must be done to mitigate this problem. On an individual level, there are several ways to be eco-friendly. Perhaps you do your part by recycling or composting. Maybe you bike to work, carpool, or use public transportation. Some of us make sure to use reusable grocery bags. Whatever the method, simple sustainability measures in our personal lives can make a difference in reducing pollution and preventing further climate change.

Along the same lines, simple sustainability measures can also be applied in the lab. As scientists, we spend a large portion of our time, resources, and energy in lab, and obviously some reagents or techniques cannot easily be recycled or made environmentally friendly. However, there are several cost and time-efficient ways to be environmentally conscientious in the lab without compromising experiments.

We have implemented several sustainability measures in our lab, and however small, we hope it will still make a difference to improve our environment.

Here, I provide a few simple steps that individuals or labs as a whole can implement to reduce our carbon footprint.

1. Re-usable glass pipettes: A lot of labs use plastic or disposable graduated pipettes (ranging from 1mL to 50mL), which produces a lot of waste. Glass pipettes can be reused indefinitely (unless they break) and cleaned with minimal effort and time using detergent and water. This may not make sense in places with water shortages, but it significantly reduces plastic waste.
2. Recycle pipette tip boxes: Pipette tip boxes can be reused and recycled. In the lab they make great containers for storage. Furthermore, a lot of manufacturers will actually take them back and reuse them as well. In our area, USA Scientific picks up used pipette tip boxes, making it a win-win for the environment and manufacturers.
3. Regenerate mini-prep columns: We have found that DNA mini-prep columns can be washed and regenerated by dropping used columns in 1N HCl for 16+ hrs, then thoroughly washing with water. Regenerated columns are good for usage one additional time. These columns do not last indefinitely, but by using the same columns twice, we can at least reduce waste by half.
4. Re-use plastic spec cuvettes: Plastic cuvettes used for spectroscopy can also be washed with detergent and reused multiple times.
5. Re-use old reagent bottles: Reagents such as methanol or ethanol are extremely volatile, and once bottles are empty and evaporated, they can be reused for storing other lab reagents or buffers (for example, SDS-PAGE buffers or Western Blot buffers). Of course, these bottles can also be recycled as well.
6. Turn off instruments: Oftentimes we forget to turn off instruments. Computers, microscopes, and other instruments can all be turned off when not in use and definitely at the end of the day.
7. Turn off lights: Do you have windows in the lab? Sometimes natural lighting is sufficient (and more pleasant). Be conscious of when you actually need a lot of light and when you don’t. And definitely turn off lights when everyone is done for the day in the lab.
8. Know your institution’s policies on trash/recycling and make sure you know what can and can’t be recycled. This is also something to keep in mind with things like biohazard waste—not all paper towels or gloves need to go in there.
9. Have other ideas? Does your lab do things differently? Please let us know or share ideas in the comments section!

Some of these sustainability measures are location-dependent or resource-specific, but hopefully by opening up this conversation, we can slowly can strive toward more eco-friendly labs. Although small and simple, every effort counts toward minimizing waste and reducing consumption.