Although recycling is great, it’s best to use the Reduce, Reuse, then Recycle mantra - in that order. You will find that the impact of your environmental footprint is reduce>reuse>recycle. We have more information on reduce and reuse.
Talk to your Waste Hauler
The first step in any recycling program is to speak with your waste hauler.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of inconsistency to what can and can’t be recycled. It differs from country to country, from commune to commune, from waste hauler to waste hauler (building to building). You need to have a conversation with your institution’s waste hauler to find out exactly what they will and won’t recycle.
Clean vs Lab Waste
There are three types of waste to discuss with your waste hauler.
Non-Lab General waste
This is just general office waste, product packaging, and paper towel from hand wash stations, etc.
Unused Lab waste
This is waste that would be used in the lab, but due to one reason or another, was not. An example would be test tubes that were damaged during shipping. They need to be disposed of, but are clean and have never been contaminated.
Some waste haulers may consider this hazardous waste. To avoid any errors, some waste haulers have a “perceived lab waste” classification where any waste that potentially may have been in the lab needs to be classified as hazardous lab waste.
Used Lab waste
Some waste haulers will take used lab waste. Discuss with them the required decontamination and labeling procedures.
Contamination
Different waste haulers have different tolerances for contaminants in recycling. Post-collection sorting is expensive, and some waste haulers are very stringent. Sometimes, one rogue item in the wrong bag means the whole bag of recyclables is disallowed. Negotiate a reasonable contamination level and work at educating your colleagues to sort properly.
Does it actually get recycled?
It is not uncommon to have “fake recycling”. This is where the community diligently decontaminates and sorts the waste into their appropriate recycling containers, but when the waste gets collected, it all goes to landfill or incineration. This may just be the actual policy or contamination (see above) is used as an excuse. This is not just a problem for lab waste, it is surprisingly true for many organizations and universities.
Ensure the contract with your waste hauler explicitly demands recycling. And get regular reports from your waste hauler regarding how much of your recycling actually gets recycled to keep them accountable.
Another common shortcut is sending recyclables (often unsorted) to developing countries. The conditions at these recycling plants in developing countries have terrible conditions. You wouldn’t want to do all this work, just to find out that you’ve sent your garbage off for someone else to deal with.
In the UK, recyclers get credits from the government on the amount of waste they recycle. A UK recycler will only get a credit for the actual material recycled (after sorting) because a certain percentage goes to landfill, whereas a “recycler” gets credit for everything they ship off to another country even if most of it ends up in the landfills at the destination country.
Check with your waste hauler that they actually have recycling facilities. Be very specific. Ensure that they do not just have a sorting facility (which is what most “recycling facilities” are), but that they actually recycle (e.g. melt down and reuse the plastic). And find out whether the material is recycled or downcycle. Recycle means it’s turned back to the same/similar things and downcycled means it is made into something of lower quality.
Sorting
As mentioned above, post-collection sorting is expensive, and some waste haulers are very stringent. Sometimes, one rogue item in the wrong bag means the whole bag of recyclables is disallowed. It is essential to educate all lab members on what goes in which bin.
At a study done at the University of Arizona, over 1/3 of students were confused at what can and can’t be recycled.
Make sure every bin is well labeled. Make it easy for them by creating definitive posters and place them on every bin.
Here’s an example from UCL:
University of Exeter:
Put recycling bins in less accessible spaces, further away from the door. This sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s most important to get pure uncontaminated recycling. Put the recycling bins somewhere that requires conscious effort to reach so that it doesn’t just become the bin used for all waste because it is most convient.
Non-Lab General waste
General office waste, product packaging, and paper towel from hand wash stations, etc. can be disposed of similarly to the rest of your organization’s waste. Most of the time, these items should not be incinerated.
Unused Lab waste
This is waste that would be used in the lab, but due to one reason or another, was not. An example would be test tubes that were damaged during shipping. They need to be disposed of, but are clean and have never been contaminated.
If you waste hauler considers this non-hazardous waste, then you will likely be able to dispose and recycle as non-lab general waste above. Double check with your waste hauler.
If you waste hauler considers this hazardous waste, then it will need to be disposed of as used lab waste below. Sometimes your waste hauler can make exceptions, for example if a large shipment of test tubes were damaged, so unused, they can collect it separately for recycling.
Used Lab waste
Ensure you know the required decontamination and labeling procedures.
For example, at TCD, they can recycle hard plastic as long as it follows this decontamination procedure
- Decontaminate
- Triple Rinse and air-dry
- Remove hazard stickers and labels (If unable to remove labels then these should be defaced or crossed out with permanent marker)
- Stick a ‘Thoroughly Rinsed’ sticker over the label
- Sort and place in designated recycling bins
Paper
All packaging waste should be placed in normal uncontaminated recycling. To avoid any issues, unpack your shipments before entering the lab.
Compost your handwash station paper towels
- CU Boulder does this in all their washrooms and lab hand-wash stations
Thermal Paper
Thermal paper can’t be recycled because they have a layer of chemicals on them. Choose BPA-free paper for your lab printouts
Recycle Glass
Recycle Plastic Consumables
Plastics that can most commonly be recycled are polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and high-density or low-density polyethylene (HDPE/LDPE). Commonly used consumables such as centrifuge tubes, pipette tips and syringe barrels are made of PP, while culture dishes and flasks are usually made of PS. HDPE and LDPE are most commonly found in lids, needle caps, falcon tube caps, and pipette tip racks. Details about materials are usually on the manufacturer’s website.
Plastics
Do not be fooled. The symbols on plastics (see photo below) are “resin identification” symbols. They are not recycling symbols. Those symbols have nothing to do with the material’s recyclability, they are just an identifier.
Therefore, those “resin idenitification” symbols do not mean the plastic is recyclable.
Recycling lab plastics is not always common. Do not be surprised if the waste hauler just assumes all your waste is contaminated and refuse to recycle.
Mixed plastics
However, just because it’s got the symbol, it doesn’t mean that your waste hauler will recycle it. Again, you need to talk to them.
Special Recyclers and Take Back Programs
There are a few specialized recyclers who recycle specific used items, like tip boxes, gloves, media bottles, etc. that you can tap into (see below).
PAN biotech - They take back all brands of PET cell culture bottles.
IMB Mainz rules:
- Lid is attached to the bottle
- Bottle is rinsed with water
- Nothing inside (e.g. pipette tips)
- Not from certain high hazard labs
Genesee Scientific has an extensive free recycling program for pipette tip racks, office materials, and cardboard and styrofoam shipping containers.
Green Lab Recycling - They take pipette tip boxes, other polypropylene packaging items and PET bottles. They charge $100 - $250 per collection.
Tradebe - Only ThermoFisher items, UK
Corning®, Falcon®, Costar®, and Axygen® packaging can all be mailed back for recycling just by printing a free shipping label. They take pipette tip racks, lids, plastic bags, shrinkwrap, centrifuge tube plastic bags, styrofoam racks, serological pipette plastic bags for cell culture wrappers, paper/plastic wrappers, plastic bags, plastic bags for cell culture dishes, plates, and flasks. Only for US labs.
Starlab Tip Box Scheme: - returned tip boxes are mostly recycled, but some are reused.
Anachem - They take back al pipette tip packaging. Their scheme provides wheelie bins, boxes or bags for you to separate and collect your waste.
Terracycle with VWR - Tip boxes, recycled into park benches
Precious Plastic - community of neighborhood recyclers who melt down plastic and turn them into useful items
Pre-Zero - Recycler in Germany and Europe willing to take lab waste
- Manchester Cancer Research Centre made ecobricks with lab packaging and they were used to build greenhouses at a local school
Recycle Polystyrene
Waste Matters - A company based in Clara, Ireland that takes all those polystyrene boxes in the back of your lab and creates ‘plastic logs’ that are shipped out to other companies for use.
Operational Consumables
MilliQ filters - Millipore Sigma takes back these to recycle with Triumvirate
Biomedical Waste
Stericycle
Tradebe - Only ThermoFisher items, UK
Triumvurate - Takes Medical waste, sanitizes it, extrudes it and turns it into plastic building materials
- Operational in Massachusetts
- Reportedly not operational is Philadelphia (May 2021)
Thermal Compaction Group - melt and compress used or faulty polypropylene face masks, gowns and curtains at 350 C to produce one meter rectangular blocks to be used as building materials
Recycle Chemicals
Athlone blends waste solvent into fuel for industrial use or redistills it into clean solvent for resale.
Many suppliers allow for unused chemicals to be returned where they will either purify for resale or dispose of properly.
Packaging
Don’t forget ways to reuse. Upcycle boxes into storage boxes, or toys for your cat.
Companies that take back packaging
New England Biolabs - Their own packaging, including ice packs and styrofoam boxes. Each box comes with a FreePost label to send it back
Promega Package Return: “All boxes have a pre-paid address label that can be used to post the polystyrene boxes back to Promega for recycling.” UK Only
Thermofisher Mauser and Winchester return scheme: “Operates a collection and recycling service for used Fisher Chemical 2.5L glass (Winchesters) and plastic coated glass bottles”
Hoelzel - including ice packs
MilliporeSigma (formerly Sigma Aldrich) have styrofoam shipping box recycling program
Corning®, Falcon®, Costar®, and Axygen® packaging can all be mailed back for recycling just by printing a free shipping label. They take pipette tip racks, lids, plastic bags, shrinkwrap, centrifuge tube plastic bags, styrofoam racks, serological pipette plastic bags for cell culture wrappers, paper/plastic wrappers, plastic bags, plastic bags for cell culture dishes, plates, and flasks. Only for US labs.
Boline Meridian Bioscience - takes back their polystyrene shipping boxes
Insight Biotechnology - takes back their polystyrene shipping boxes
2bscientific.com - takes back their ice-packs and recycles them.
Equipment
Supplier Take-back programs
Mettler-Toledo: Balances, pH Meters, Titrators
Beckman Coulter: Centrifuges
VWR/G-Storm: Thermal Cycler
Rainin: Pipettes (trade-in for discount)
E-waste
See our section on computer/bioinformatics labs/servers.
If you are located in the United States, Best Buy offers an electronic waste program. You can drop these items ( Electronics and Appliances Recycling at Best Buy) off at your local Best Buy, or they have a mail-in option ( Mail-In Recycling Service - Best Buy)
If you are located in the province of Alberta, Canada, their Alberta Recycling Management Authority currently has an ePilot program that accepts almost anything that runs on batteries or plugs into the wall (no hazardous materials). Home - ARMA ePilot
Impact
Find out where you waste goes and then use this EPA mapper to see the populations affected. Lab waste is a Social Justice issue.
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