Last month I posted a letter I wrote to a newspaper about making better decisions regarding single use plastics and the response from my extended network on here was incredibly positive. Following that post, I've had a number of inspiring conversations with people I had previously never met who are working to reduce both the carbon footprint and massive amount of plastic waste generated by laboratories. All of the conversations I've had so far were with people and companies working to recycle plastic laboratory waste directly back into laboratory products or into other products like building materials. In the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle workflow, recycling is a powerful way to conserve the massive amounts of energy used in the extraction and manufacturing of plastic laboratory products and is a crucial step to building out a circular economy for plastics used in laboratories. We shouldn't accept exceptionally high-quality plastics being used once and thrown into a landfill or incinerator. Noah Pyles and Polycarbin have implemented an incredibly powerful recycling solution that combines simple and straightforward waste collection with processing, manufacturing, and effectively real-time analytics. I'm blown away at how thoroughly they've thought about and tackled the challenges surrounding this problem all while developing it alongside a sustainability report ready data platform. Incredible. Sam White and GreenLabs Recycling are building out a hyper-local recycling business in Boston / Cambridge that implements waste collection with localized manufacturing of products made from 100% recycled plastic lab waste. As part of a wider slate of environment, health, and safety offerings Christina Samela, MS and Triumvirate Environmental recycle plastic waste into plastic lumber products through their Red2Green program. To date, laboratories Christina manages have diverted over 200,000! pounds of plastic lab waste through Triumvirates Red2Green recycling program. I'd love to continue these conversations with others about creative strategies upstream of recycling - especially options that implement reusable options where single use plastics dominate, or strategies and technologies for eliminating the use of plastic waste altogether. Grenova, ClickBio, Inc., V&P Scientific, Inc. you immediately came to mind if you're interested! I envision the end goal of these conversations as an accessible map of any and all options available to scientists and automation engineers to reduce the environmental impacts and carbon footprints of our laboratories through the different aspects of the Refuse, Reduce, Repurpose, Reuse, Recycle process. I've been pretty successful in a role that generated massive amounts of plastic waste - let's see what we can do working together to minimize it.
After 15 years in lab automation my personal single use consumable waste footprint is massive and I've been thinking a lot about that lately. This took all of five minutes to write but little things add up. I'd love to talk about how we can lower our plastic footprint in the biotech / lab automation space.
Will, thank you for the kind mention and recognition of our plastics recycling program! It's inspiring to see the growing momentum in our industry toward a circular economy, and we’re thrilled to be part of this movement. We’re always eager to engage in more conversations about upstream solutions, especially those focused on reusability and reducing plastic use from the outset. Keep up the great work and discourse! 👏
Sam White
3mo
Will Turman Your efforts are needed more than ever. Emissions from healthcare and lifesciences is greater than airlines. Have you read this article yet? https://www.linkedin.com/posts/samwhite_commentary-why-bostons-life-sciences-sector-activity-7168225007821680640-yjyS?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Derek Dulek
4mo
Soon to be announced but I made the move over to Grenova with the goal of supporting this mission. You were on my list to reach out to this week about this article. Let's catch up!
Proud to be one of the many solutions to the plastic crisis! Thanks for the shoutout
Love this ♥️ excellent work here! Would love to be a part of the “map” that supports business processes and facilitates access of these innovations through procurement!
Noah Pyles
4mo
Thank you for the shout out and the kind words Will Turman! It is always great connecting and sharing ideas with climate conscious scientists motivated by sustainable innovation. Using your platform to raise awareness helps expand the market for sustainable alternatives to the #SingleUse status quo and educate the next generation of scientists interested in reducing the carbon impact of their important work.
Jeff H.
4mo
Keep going!
Thank you for sharing your insights and passion on this critical issue. At Grenova, we are equally committed to reducing plastic waste in the lab space and are thrilled at the prospect of connecting with like-minded professionals to explore sustainable solutions. We’d love to join the conversation and share our approach to minimizing single-use plastics through our innovative cleaning technologies.