There is little need to persuade the lab greening community that waste reduction should be a major focus. All lab protocols and processes can be said to generate waste in one form or another. For example, the manufacture of lab products and equipment generates greenhouse gas emissions, their use in the lab may do the same. End-of-lab-product-life is another waste contributor. The five Rs of Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle, Rot are a useful prompt for best practices. For typical example of wasted single-use plastic lab products, see Fig. 1.
A superb example of reduced use of plastics in a microbiology lab was published by staff in the world-renowned Roslin Institute1. Staff catalogued and tracked the use of seven single-use plastics, to define the baseline, before substituting some for non-plastic alternatives e.g., metal inoculation loops and wooden inoculation sticks replaced plastic versions. A detailed protocol for decontamination, washing and sterilising selected plasticware for reuse, was also provided. This approach led to a 43 kg reduction in plastic waste by seven microbiologists, over four weeks1. Closer to home, staff in the Marine Institute were creative in their approach to reducing single-use plastics in the lab. In addition to substituting some single-use plastics with washable glass alternatives, they substituted 200 ml shellfish sample containers with a compostable cardboard alternative. For more details, see ‘Case Studies’ section of website.
Further guidance on approaches to reducing lab waste can be found under cross-cutting themes/resources and the My Green Lab website. https://www.mygreenlab.org/waste.html.