Recycling plastics from research labs
In 2019, MIT’s Setting, Well being, and Security (EHS) Workplace collaborated with a number of analysis labs within the Division of Biology to find out the feasibility of recycling clear lab plastics. Primarily based on early successes with waste isolation and plastics assortment, EHS collaborated with GreenLabs Recycling, an area startup, to take away and recycle lab plastics from campus. It was an enormous success.
As we speak, EHS spearheads the campus Lab Plastics Recycling Program, and its EHS technicians usually collect clear lab plastics from 212 MIT labs, transferring them to GreenLabs for recycling. Since its pilot stage, the variety of labs taking part in this system has grown, rising the full quantity of plastic gathered and recycled. In 2020, EHS collected 170 kilos of plastic waste per week from taking part labs. That elevated to 250 kilos per week in 2021. In 2022, EHS collected a complete of 19,000 kilos, or 280 kilos of plastic per week.
Joanna Buchthal, a analysis assistant with the MIT Media Lab, signifies that, previous to becoming a member of the EHS Lab Plastics Recycling Program, “our laboratory was repeatedly troubled by the substantial quantity of plastic waste we produced and disheartened by our incapability to recycle it. We ceaselessly addressed this problem throughout our group conferences and explored varied methods to repurpose our waste, but we by no means arrived at a viable answer.”
The EHS program now supplies an answer to labs dealing with related challenges with plastics use. After pickup and removing, the plastics are shredded and offered as free inventory for injection mildew product manufacturing. Buchthal says, “My whole lab is delighted to recycle our used tip bins and remodel them into helpful objects for different labs!”
Not too long ago, GreenLabs offered EHS with a three-gallon bucket that native producers produced from one hundred pc recycled plastic gathered from MIT labs. No fillers or components had been utilized in its manufacturing.
Maintaining it clear
The now-growing EHS service and operation began as a pilot. In June 2019, MIT restricted which lab-generated objects could possibly be positioned in single-stream recycling. MIT’s waste distributors had been now not accepting probably contaminated waste, corresponding to gloves, pipette tip bins, bottles, and different plastic waste usually generated in organic analysis labs. The waste distributors would audit MIT’s single-stream recycling and reject objects in the event that they noticed any contamination.
Going through these challenges, the EHS coordinator for biology, John Fucillo, and a number of other EHS representatives from the division met with EHS employees to brainstorm potential recycling options. Guaranteeing the decontamination of the plastic and coordinating its removing in an environment friendly method had been the first challenges for the labs, says Fucillo, who shared his and lab members’ issues concerning the quantity of plastic being thrown away with Mitch Galanek, EHS affiliate director for the Radiation Safety Program. Galanek says, “I instantly acknowledged the frustration expressed by John and different lab contacts as a chance to collaborate.”
In July 2019, Galanek and a workforce of EHS technicians started segregating and accumulating clear plastic waste from a number of labs inside the biology division. EHS offered the labs with assortment containers, and its technicians managed the waste removing over a four-month interval, which produced a snapshot of the amount and kind of waste generated. An audit of the waste decided that roughly 80 p.c of the clear plastic waste generated was empty pipette tip bins and conical tube racks.
Primarily based on these information, EHS launched a lab plastics recycling pilot program in November 2019. Labs from the Division of Biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Most cancers Analysis had been invited to take part by recycling their clear, uncontaminated pipette tip bins and conical tube racks. Along with offering these labs with assortment bins and plastic liners, EHS additionally developed an online waste collection request tool to submit plastic pickup requests. EHS additionally collected the waste containers as soon as they had been full.
Assistant professor of biology Seychelle Vos joined the pilot program as quickly as she began her lab in fall 2019. Vos shares that “we already use pipette ideas bins that produce minimal waste, and this program permits us to principally recycle any a part of the field aside from ideas. Pipette bins are a big supply of plastic waste. This program helps us to be extra environmentally and local weather pleasant.”
Given the elevated participation in this system, EHS technician Dave Pavone says that plastic pickup is now a “common element of our work schedules.”
Collectively, the EHS technicians, generally generally known as “techs,” handle the pickup of almost 300 plastic assortment containers throughout campus. Normand Desrochers, one of many EHS techs, shares that every morning he plans his pickup route “to get the job performed effectively.” Whereas weekly pickups are a rising a part of their schedules, Desrochers notes that everybody has been “tremendous appreciative in what we do for his or her labs. And what we do makes their job that a lot simpler, with the ability to concentrate on their analysis.”
Barbara Karampalas, a lab operations supervisor inside the Division of Organic Engineering, is one among many to specific appreciation for this system: “We’ve a pretty big lab with 35 researchers, so we generate loads of plastic waste … [and] realizing what number of tip bins we had been utilizing involved me. I actually recognize the trouble EHS has made to implement this program to assist us cut back our impression on the atmosphere.” This system additionally “makes individuals within the lab extra conscious of the difficulty of plastic waste and MIT’s dedication to cut back its impression on the atmosphere,” says Karampalas.
Trying forward
MIT labs proceed to enthusiastically embrace the EHS Lab Plastics Recycling Program: 112 school throughout 212 labs are at the moment taking part in this system. Whereas solely empty pipette tip bins and conical tube racks are at the moment collected, EHS is exploring which lab plastics could possibly be manufactured into merchandise to be used within the labs and repeatedly recycled. Particularly, the EHS Workplace is contemplating whether or not recycled plastic could possibly be used to supply secondary containers for accumulating hazardous waste and benchtop switch containers used for accumulating medical waste. As Seychelle notes, “Most plastics can’t be recycled within the present schemes as a consequence of their use in laboratory science.”
Says Fucillo, “Our hope is that this program might be expanded to incorporate different merchandise which could possibly be recycled from the moist labs.” John MacFarlane, analysis engineer and EHS coordinator for civil and environmental engineering, echoes this sentiment: “With plastic recycling dealing with financial constraints, this effort by the Institute deserves to be promoted and, hopefully, expanded.”
“Having extra alternatives to recycle ’biologically clear’ plastics would assist us have a smaller carbon footprint,” agrees Vos. “We love this program and hope it expands additional!”
MIT labs keen on taking part within the EHS Lab Plastics Recycling Program can contact pipetip@mit.edu to be taught extra.