10 Ways to Stay Green in the Lab in 2010

It is hard to do in this business. Numerous consumables, single-use everything to maintain experiment integrity, and constantly ordering reagents with all that packaging! It is a never ending stream of materials that go into experiments dealing with such small molecules. Hope is not lost- there are a few cheap and easy things we as bench scientists can do to help make our labs a little greener.

1 Always recycle- It is mandatory now for most companies and organizations to recycle (especially in California) if they produce more than 1 dumpster full of trash per week. You can do your part in the lab by always putting non-toxic/hazardous recyclables in the recycle bin! Even here in the Allele labs I often find Kimwipe boxes, glove boxes, and even plastic drinking water bottles in the trash and have to fish them out. Always recycling is an easy and, best of all, free thing to do to make your labs more earth friendly.

2 There’s no place like the correct waste receptacle- Every type of waste has its place. Be nice to the earth by putting biohazard in the biohazard, sharps in the sharps, organic solvent waste in the organic solvent waste drum etc.

3 Shut it down!- Always turn off your computer and unused equipment. You can save about $250 per computer per year just by shutting it down every night. Turning off other equipment like the UVP is easy to forget too. Just powering off that at night saves energy and extends the life of the bulb which also saves your lab some cash.

4 Look for ethidium bromide alternatives- This is a work in progress. With all the controversies regarding SYBR and DAPI in their function and mutagenic qualities it seems that there is a call for development of a legitimately safe method to visualize DNA and RNA. Allele is on the case and hopes to have something in the pipeline soon!

5 Swap your boxes- Styrofoam is a necessary evil in the lab. It is the easiest way to transport your temperature sensitive reagents and diagnostics; it is lightweight so it does not add too much to your shipping charges. The bad news is (until better recycling is implemented) that one styrofoam box will be here forever! If you have no occasion to reuse your styrofoam within your own institution there is good news. There are companies out there who will buy your used styrofoam boxes, like Allele with its Box Swap Program, so at the very least that styrofoam box can be used a few more times, eliminating the need to buy it brand new and decreasing demand for this material. If you cannot take advantage of our program then set one up for your own company!

6 Only use dry ice when you have to- If your shipment only requires -20 degrees C for a single day transit time blue ice will work! I have seen it more than I can say when we get a robust reagent sent to us in dry ice with priority shipping. Within the US, priority shipping usually means a transit time about 20 hrs. This last time I saw a small vial in the box which had ~7 lbs of dry ice. This much dry ice will keep a 2lb object frozen for about 24 hrs and someone used it to ship a 10g vial that only needed to be stored at -20 deg C for about 20 hrs! If they had used a 12oz blue ice pack they would have saved on shipping and packaging and we would have been able to reuse the pack, furthering our green endeavors.

7 Close the sash!- This is another great and inexpensive way to save the environment and some money. Closing the hood sash, incubator doors, and refrigerators adds up; constantly leaving them open add up too!

8 Back that thing up!- Since we are lab folk we do not have as many crazy office chain emails going around but I checked and yesterday I sent out 17 emails and received a few more than that! Days like that I shudder to think that there are people out there who receive more than I do on a daily basis and print out every single one for their “records”. This is madness. Please remember to not print emails unless you really need a hard copy. It’s just as easy to save it in a computer file and back your file up.

9 Talk about it- Those motivational types tell you to talk about your goals to others as a means of supporting and motivating yourself to accomplish said goals. Talk to your lab mates and ask them things they can think of to green up your lab. Do not feel weird about seeming “nerdy” by supporting the environment. Chances are, if you work in a lab everyone thinks you are a big nerd already!

10 Network green- I do not like business cards. They are usually made of paper, come in obscene quantities, and do not get recycled. If your title changes or you switch companies you have to go a buy thousands more to update your info. Additionally, they are only for work; there is no social aspect to them and they are too small to really put all your contact info on. Good news is you can go green in networking with Pokens! Pokens are these amazing little animal and people shaped devices that store all your contact info including your company’s website, your email, your social networking pages (i.e. facebook, linkedin, etc.), phone numbers, and whatever else you want. When someone else has a Poken you can “high-four” them and your contact info is swapped. Your Poken can hold many profiles and when it gets full you can load them onto your address book on your computer. There is an upgraded model specifically for business that is not animal shaped and is a zip drive as well. They are relatively new to America and I am one of the many campaigning for them to revolutionize the business card industry! I have two- one for work and one for play.