Recycling laboratory plastics
- By Southern Labware Inc
- Aug 27, 2016
What is one of the most important laboratory products in today's research laboratory? Without a doubt it is laboratory plasticware. Laboratory plastics such as centrifuge tubes, microcentrifuge tubes, culture tubes and pipettes are an essential tool for cell biologists, molecular biologists and biochemists. Plasticware offers researchers accuracy in volume measurement, sterility, reduction of cross contamination, but most importantly convenience and disposability. Unfortunately, disposability and convenience comes at a price. What happens to all the discarded pipette tips, tip boxes and centrifuge tubes? Are they simply thrown away with the other laboratory waste that ends up in a landfill? There must be a better way to disgard this waste.
TerraCycle’s Zero Waste Box™ platform allows you to recycle many of those hard to recycle items used in your lab. The Zero Waste Box program helps give your lab the opportunity to go zero waste, sending nothing to landfills or incineration. TerraCycle uses only circular methods (reuse, upcycling or recycling) for repurposing the waste collected through the Zero Waste Box™ platform. TerraCycle will never landfill or incinerate your waste.
So how is all the waste collected in Zero Waste Box™ processed?
Reuse
Reuse (using something for its original purpose) is always the best option as it leverages all of the energy and materials that were needed to make the original product.
Upcycling
The key difference between upcycling and reusing waste is that with upcycling the original intention of the object changes. TerraCycle works with many of the world's best companies to bring upcycling solutions to many forms of waste.
TerraCycle's goal is to focus on hard-to-recycle materials, developing circular solutions for otherwise linear systems. Today we recycle millions of pounds of such material on a weekly basis, diverting it from our landfills and incinerators.
Recycling
The science of recycling is focused on recovering the materials that an object is made of. For example, recycling a used pen involves shredding it, separating the materials that it was made from, then melting those materials into raw materials that can be then used to make new recycled products. By volume, TerraCycle recycles over 97% of the waste that is collected.
When looking at a new waste stream we first focus on moving it from a linear disposal system to a circular one, and then over time to a platform that is as closed loop as technically possible.
The Zero Waste Box™ platform collects waste that is very consistent in composition and volume. The material collected is consistent with low lot-to-lot variability. The in-house R&D department and laboratories at TerraCycle have the capability to customize materials to meet almost any specific requirements of their production partners. The goal is to provide materials to a company that can be used as a sustainable alternative to virgin materials; using less crude oil and instead utilizing a material that would normally be sent to landfill.
R&D teams at TerraCycle work closely with their partners to develop closed-loop solutions for various waste materials. These closed loop solutions can range from making secondary applications like displays or pallets from a waste material to be used by the same company to primary applications that involve turning the waste back into the same product that it began as.
So how does it work?
Simply choose a Zero Waste Box™
- Centrifuge Tubes & Rigid Lab Plastics Zero Waste Box™
- Glassware Zero Waste Box™
- Laboratory Gloves Zero Waste Box™
It's that easy.
It's not everyday you find a new and exciting solution to a very real problem. TerraCycle’s Zero Waste Box™ creates a streamlined process for collecting and recycling laboratory waste. Help reduce your labs carbon footprint with a Zero Waste Box™.
For more information about TerraCycle and their collection and recycling process please visit TerraCycle
