• Question: what techniques do you use to make your projects environmentally friendly?

    Asked by auks520cots on 7 Apr 2025.
    • Photo: Charlotte Slade

      Charlotte Slade answered on 7 Apr 2025:

      Great question! Making science sustainable is a HUGE priority.

      Here are some things we do:

      Reduce, reuse, recycle: We try to minimize waste in the lab by reusing materials and recycling whenever possible. ♻️
      Energy efficiency: We use energy-efficient equipment and try to reduce our overall energy consumption. 🌱
      Sustainable materials: When designing new instruments, we look for materials that are eco-friendly and can be recycled at the end of their life. 🌳
      Thinking about the whole lifecycle: From design to disposal, we consider the environmental impact of every stage of a project. 🌍

      It’s not just about being “green” – it’s about being responsible scientists. Every little bit helps!

    • Photo: Jayalini Assalaarachchi

      Jayalini Assalaarachchi answered on 9 Apr 2025:

      In my workplace, we are encouraged to to separate the waste correctly. Anything that can be recycled goes to recycling. At the end of the day, we also switch off any machines that don’t need to stay on overnight to save energy. When we buy reagents, machines and other equipment, we try to buy from companies that make products that are environmentally friendly.

    • Photo: Timothy Nixon

      Timothy Nixon answered on 20 May 2025:

      We aim to use innovative techniques both during the design of a project (site investigation methods) and during construction (reducing the use of concrete, using renewable materials like wood, using low carbon concrete where required and avoiding over design and waste of materials. We will also look at reducing the carbon footprint of buildings during their life by adding features like ground source heat pumps, adding insulation and making buildings easier to repair and maintain.

    • Photo: Amal Lavender

      Amal Lavender answered on 1 Jul 2025:

      this is a major focus for us and many companies. We are trying to recycle, donate old equipment such as PCs and Instruments. The largest challenge is our carbon footprint as we have so many sensitive labs that require tight temperature controls… so we are looking on how to replace our gas boilers. Other great ideas are changing our gloves; increasing our bio-diversity; eliminating plastic cups and disposable cutlery to name a few.

Comments

  • Photo: Ciaran

    Ciaran commented on :

    Great question! We are constantly thinking about how we can reduce waste from our experiments. Due to the requirement for sterile conditions in most of our experiments we have a lot of single use reagents and equipment.
    In particluar, we try to reduce the amount of disposable plastics as much as possible.
    There are initiatives such as MyGreenLab certification to help scientists be aware of sustainability in science and how best to implement environmentally friendly practices in the lab