By: Alex Chapleau
With climate change and the environment being named the hot button issue of the 2019 federal election, single-use plastics, pipelines and urban sprawl have become the controversial hot topics in today’s society. And let’s be honest, when the spotlight inevitably shines its light onto science, what the public will see is regrettably far from ideal. With more and more people becoming interested in implementing sustainable living practices into their everyday lives, these habits rarely seem to carry over to the laboratory. Thispresents an interested quandary to the average eco-friendly scientist. Can you truly consider yourself as living a life conducive to your sustainable values if you spend 7+ hours a day disposing of numerous pipette tips, papertowels and other plastic items?
A 2015 article published in Nature (see the link below) examined the Bioscience Department at the University of Exeter’s waste and discovered that 267 tonnes of plastic was generated in 2014. If we were to extrapolate this amount to a worldwide total, this would equal approximately 5.5 million tonnes of lab generated waste. Plastic consumables rule the wet lab world: syringes, petri dishes, tips and culture tubes are used once and then discarded. While there are valid issues such as contamination risks and the time and labour-saving advantages these single use plastics offer us, don’t we have an ethical obligation to attempt to find more sustainable alternatives and practices?
In 2018, a group of like-minded graduate students at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) joined together to create the Green Labs Initiative @ the Neuro (GLI@Neuro), an organization dedicated to addressing the environmental and financial waste created by labs at the MNI. To quote the Green Labs Initiative, “the benefits of scientific research should not be outweighed by its heavy environmental cost” – and many of us couldn’t agree more.
With that as their mandate, the GLI@Neuro team received funding from the McGill Sustainability Project Fund (SPF) to implemented several programs around the Neuro, including pipette tip box and Kimberly-Clark glove recycling, and a “lab material swap space” that labs can access in Room 655. While the GLI@Neuro initiative has been focused on making sustainablechanges within the MNI, several other students and faculty across McGill are now teaming up to apply for additional funding to expand the initiative. In the meantime, the Green Labs Initiative is happy to share some tips and tricks to creating a more sustainable laboratory environment across the IPN:
Don’t use the yellow bin as a regular garbage: this bin is for biohazardous items to be incinerated. Anything non-toxic or non-biohazardous can be rinsed with tap water and disposed of in the regular garbage (or recycling, where applicable). If you are unsure you can review the EHS info on proper waste disposal (link here)
Shut the sash on fume hoods and biosafety cabinets when not in use. You can print a sign to remind your labmates, and the GLI@Neuro team will hopefully be able to provide some “Shut the Sash” stickers in the new year!
Wash and reuse falcon tubes and other plastic reservoirs when applicable, and use glass beakers instead whenever possible. Petri dishes, beakers and … are sold as autoclavable glassware that can be washed and reused.
Use ethanol instead of methanol for your western blot transfer.
Use MilliQ water only when necessary – it’s energy-intensive to produce!
If your ice is still fresh when you’ve finished using it, try asking lab members if they need any before throwing it in the sink.
Save Styrofoam boxes to use as ice buckets if you don’t already. We’re looking into Styrofoam recycling in the new year, and are planning a campaign to address the excessive shipping materials from lab vendors!
Turn off equipment, particularly cooled centrifuges, heat blocks/water baths and tissue culture hoods, when not in use – especially overnight and on weekends. We suggest putting up a checklist at your lab door to remind the last person to leave to check equipment.
If you have items in the lab that are no longer used, or accidently ordered the wrong thing, bring it to the lab material swap area (Room 655) in the MNI or consider starting your own if your lab is not located at the MNI. Remember to enter the item in the spreadsheet if at the Neuro – a QR code is up in the room!
Reuse Ziploc bags to take your samples to the Genome Quebec sequencing centre – you can remove your samples from your bag when you get there!
If your lab receives tail tips from the animal facility for genotyping, keep the Ziploc bags and return them for the next tail tip collection! The staff at the animal facility have been happy to reuse the bags, but double check with whomever is managing your colony first.
Bring your own containers/plates/mugs to seminars and cafes around your building
Set up compost collection in your lunch area, and collect your own general recycling in blue bags if you have city street recycling at your building (at the Neuro, pick-up is on Wednesdays on Rue Université, close to the ambulance entrance)
Look for the green leaf next to products on MMP or the VWR website – it means they’re (more) sustainable! If the price of a product you’re interested in is prohibitive, let the Green Labs Initiative know and we can try to work with Sustainable Purchasing to put pressure on the company for a discount.
Reuse (non-contaminated) gloves stretched over a beaker to collect small bench garbage (ex. tips) or tissue disposal after dissections.
If you don’t already, pool your items to autoclave with other labs so as to make maximum use of each cycle.
If you filter a lot of solution (tissue culture work for example) consider using Pall Vacucup filters which significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste. They have a 2 for 1 deal on until the end of December 2019 for the following products:
4638 – CA28139-704
4622 – CA28143-315
4628 – CA28139-706
Thank you to the Green Labs Initiative for sharing these tips with us! If any of you have implemented your own conservation techniques into your lab routines, don’t hesitate to let us know! We’d love to hear your strategies and continue to grow our list of eco-friendly lab practices. These tips are available as a google doc which you can add to – just email the Green Labs Initiative at gliatneuro@gmail.com for the link!
Additional Links:
Check out https://www.labconscious.com/ – this group has put together an impressive list of resources for sustainable lab practices, and are making efforts to connect different green lab initiatives across the globe!
Here is a link to the Green Labs Initiative website: https://gliatneuro.github.io/
Link to the 2015 correspondence article published in Nature examining waste in the laboratory: https://www.nature.com/articles/528479c
Link to a 2013 correspondence article published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/502170a
References
Urbina, M., Watts, A. & Reardon, E. Labs should cut plastic waste too. Nature 528, 479 (2015) doi:10.1038/528479c
Alex is a first year MSc student here at the IPN. She’s investigating how defects in translational processes can result in hypomyelination in the central nervous system. When not in the lab, she enjoys discovering all the cute coffee shops in Mtl!