Green Team Blog Instalment 1 – Lab Plastic Waste
Heather Hayes, one of our Green Team here at Peak Proteins gives an update on our efforts to reduce the amount of single use plastic we use.
Did you know that an estimated 5.5 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced annually by scientific research? 1 That’s the equivalent weight of approximately 30,000 blue whales!* Many of us are becoming more and more conscious of our plastic consumption in our personal lives but overlook the environmental impact of our work. As scientists we should be solving the plastic problem, not contributing to it.
*More blue whales than are left in the world today…😢
What’s the problem with plastic?
Single-use plastic products are considered to be convenient, inexpensive, inert, and safe. These properties make plastic consumables ideal for use in the lab as tubes, gloves, and pipette tips, among many, many others. It is reasonable to say that plastic has facilitated some of the most important scientific advances of the last few decades. Nevertheless, these plastic products come with a large environmental price tag. Plastic is a resource intensive material to produce. Every stage in plastic’s lifecycle, from extraction of raw materials to disposal of end products, relies on fossil resources resulting in enormous greenhouse gas emissions. Accumulation of plastic in the environment is also causing damage to ecosystems both on land and in the ocean.
Why not recycle?
Much of the plastic waste produced by laboratories is considered hazardous as it has come into contact with chemical or biological samples. As a result, lab plastic waste is not currently accepted by most recyclers. Instead, the waste must either be incinerated or decontaminated by autoclaving before being sent to landfill. Even if these items could be recycled, the recycled plastic is often more expensive and has inferior properties compared to virgin plastic – this isn’t to say that plastic shouldn’t be recycled where possible (e.g. uncontaminated packaging).
What can we do about the plastic problem?
In short, reduce and reuse. Going “cold turkey” from plastic products in the lab is perhaps inadvisable from a scientific as well as a health and safety perspective. However, avoiding the use of unnecessary single-use plastic consumables is often perfectly achievable and can save money. In some cases, this could be through good experimental planning, in other cases more significant operational and behavioural changes may be required.2 The type and location of lab will also determine the plastic-reducing practices possible. Sometimes a creative approach is needed.3
So, what is Peak Proteins doing about it?
At Peak Proteins (Part of Sygnature Discovery) we are always on the lookout for new ways to reduce plastic our waste without comprising the high quality of our work. Some of the plastic-reducing measures we have recently implemented are summarised below.
References
1. Urbina M. A. et al. Environment: Labs should cut plastic waste too. Nature 528, 479 (2015).
2. Alves J. et al. A case report: insights into reducing plastic waste in a microbiology laboratory. Access Microbiology 3, 000173 (2021).
3. Kilcoyne J. et al. Reducing environmental impacts of marine biotoxin monitoring: A laboratory report. PLoS Sustainability and Transformation 1, 3, e0000001 (2022).
4. Farley M. and Nicolet B. P. Re-use of laboratory utensils reduces CO2 equivalent footprint and running costs PLoS ONE 18, 4, e0283697 (2023).
