Auditing

Green Lab Best Practices Database Waste
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  • Photo by Department of Earth Science, University of Bergen

A structured audit helps you identify which items generate the most plastic waste, test interventions, and measure real improvements over time. This case study from the Roslin Institute suggests a great process.

Step 1 – Define the scope and goals

Decide what you’re auditing:

  • Which waste streams? Plastic only, or also paper, glass, chemicals, PPE?
  • Which areas? Whole building, one lab, one group, or one room?
  • Which items? Pipette tips, tubes, plates, flasks, packaging, etc.

Clarify your goals:

  • Reduce single‑use plastics by X%
  • Identify top 5 plastic items by volume
  • Validate reuse strategies
  • Reduce contamination in recycling

Step 2 – Set a baseline period

Choose a baseline duration:

  • Recommended: 4 weeks (as in the case study)
  • Long enough to capture normal behaviour and variability

During this period:

  • Do not change behaviour yet
  • No new posters, no new rules—just observe and record
  • Tell people you’re auditing, but not what you’re targeting

Step 3 – Design your tracking sheet

Create a simple tracker (spreadsheet or form) with at least:

  • Date / Week
  • Location / Lab
  • Item type (e.g. 1.5 mL tube, 50 mL tube, tip box, plate)
  • Material (PP, PS, PET, etc. if known)
  • Quantity
  • Waste stream (general, recycling, biohazard, sharps, etc.)
  • Reusable? (Yes/No/Possible)
  • Contamination present? (Yes/No)
  • Notes (e.g. “from PCR”, “from teaching practical”, “heavily contaminated”)

You can later add:

  • Intervention applied
  • Post‑intervention quantity
  • % reduction

Step 4 – Collect baseline data

On a regular schedule (e.g. daily or 2–3× per week):

  1. Go through the bins in the defined area(s).
  2. Sort and count target items (or weigh, if counting is too time‑consuming).
  3. Record contamination (e.g. food, gloves, biohazard in recycling).
  4. Note patterns (e.g. “Mondays high tips from qPCR”, “teaching days = more plates”).

Keep this going for the full baseline period.

Step 5 – Identify main offenders

At the end of the baseline:

  • Sort your data by quantity and/or weight.
  • Identify the top 5–10 items that generate the most waste.
  • Mark which of these are:
    • Potentially reusable
    • Replaceable with glass or other reusables
    • Reducible by better planning (e.g. fewer repeats, smaller volumes)

These are your priority targets.

Step 6 – Design interventions

For each main offender, choose one or more interventions:

  • Reduce at source
    • Better experimental design
    • Fewer repeats
    • Smaller volumes
    • Shared reagents or master mixes
  • Reuse
    • Wash and reuse tubes, plates, cuvettes (where appropriate)
    • Switch to glassware or metal tools
    • Implement decontamination protocols
  • Replace
    • Glass Petri dishes instead of plastic
    • Bottle‑top dispensers instead of repeated pipetting
    • Reusable silicone covers instead of parafilm
  • Improve sorting
    • Clear bin labels
    • Posters with photos
    • Training on what is recyclable and what is not

Step 7 – Engage the team

Behaviour change is crucial.

  • Identify one or two “sustainability champions” in the lab.
  • Present baseline results at a lab meeting:
    • “We used X thousand tips in 4 weeks.”
    • “These 3 items make up Y% of our plastic waste.”
  • Agree on which interventions to try and for how long (e.g. 6–8 weeks).
  • Put up simple, visual reminders near benches and bins.

Step 8 – Implement interventions

Start your intervention period:

  • Apply the chosen changes (reuse, reduction, replacement, better sorting).
  • Keep other conditions as similar as possible to baseline.
  • Encourage people to report issues (e.g. inconvenience, contamination, protocol conflicts).

Step 9 – Continue tracking during intervention

Use the same tracking sheet as in the baseline:

  • Same items
  • Same locations
  • Same frequency of data collection

This allows direct comparison:

  • Baseline vs. post‑intervention
  • Quantity of each item
  • Contamination rates
  • Success of reuse strategies

Step 10 – Validate reuse (side‑by‑side testing)

For any reused item (e.g. tubes, plates, cuvettes):

  • Run side‑by‑side experiments:
    • New vs. reused consumables
    • Same protocol, same conditions
  • Compare:
    • Yield
    • Contamination
    • Signal quality
    • Reproducibility

If there is no meaningful difference, you can safely adopt reuse for that application.

Document:

  • Protocol for washing/decontamination
  • Number of reuse cycles tested
  • Any limitations (e.g. “only for non‑sterile work”)

Step 11 – Analyse and communicate results

At the end of the intervention period:

  • Calculate:
    • Total reduction in each item (absolute and %)
    • Overall plastic reduction (items or weight)
    • Change in contamination rates
  • Highlight:
    • Which interventions worked best
    • Which were difficult or unpopular
    • What should become standard practice

Share results:

  • Lab meetings
  • Posters in the lab
  • Internal newsletters or sustainability groups

Visible success helps maintain motivation.

Step 12 – Iterate and expand

Use what you’ve learned to:

  • Make successful interventions permanent
  • Tweak or drop ineffective ones
  • Add new target items to the audit
  • Expand from one lab to multiple labs or whole buildings

You now have a repeatable framework:

Identify → Measure → Intervene → Validate → Monitor → Scale

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