Rethink Before You Recycle: Tackling Lab Consumables Waste

If the amount of plastic that your lab goes through feels overwhelming, you’re definitely not alone.

From pipette tips and falcon tubes, to gloves and wipes, single-use plastic consumables are the norm in most lab environments. They do provide convenience and help to prevent contamination but they end up being a frequent hidden expense, and filling up our bins.

Recycling is the easy option, simple, visible and familiar and it can feel great! Throwing plastic items away hoping they will go through the right recycling pathways. But we don’t ask the more important question…

Did we really need to use them in the first place?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - In That Order

Recycling our lab plastics is often the first step labs take toward sustainability and that’s a good move. But many waste companies will not take any items if they have been contaminated with chemical or biological materials, which rules a high percentage of consumables out before we even start.

The “Three R’s” start with “reduce” and for good reason, it has the biggest impact. By using less, choosing reusable alternatives and rethinking old habits we are able to bypass a lot of carbon and financial waste. Resulting in less raw materials, less manufacturing, less transport and less waste.

Even if we could recycle all the plastic in our labs, reduction is the most effective step to take, both from a financial and environmental point of view. It’s not about doing everything at once. It’s about picking a few practical steps that work for your lab.

Where Labs Can Make a Real Difference

Here are a few practical ways to reduce waste in the lab:

🔁 Switch to Reusables

Some labs are replacing single-use items with reusable glass options such as bottles, petri dishes, and beakers. It may mean a bit more cleaning and coordination, but over time, these swaps can really cut down on waste and costs.

🧠 Be Intentional with Consumables

It’s easy to grab fresh tubes or re-run tests without checking for existing data. I know, we’ve all done it. But a quick plan or check-in with a colleague can save time, resources, and plastic. Shared logs or inventories can also help prevent redundancy.

🧼 Wash and Reuse Supplies

More teams are exploring safe reusables e.g. autoclaving glassware, rinsing falcon tubes, or washing racks. These small efforts create a mindful lab culture, and often spark fresh sustainability ideas among the team.

🛒 Rethink How You Order

Your purchasing habits matter. Avoiding bulk orders you don’t need, reviewing regular purchases, and syncing with other groups can prevent waste before it starts (including expired and unused items). It’s also a great way to bring the whole lab into the conversation.

Action of the Week:

• Take a quick inventory of your lab bench. What gets used once and thrown away?

• Pick one item you could replace with a reusable version.

• Start a conversation with your team: “What are we throwing away that we didn’t really need to use?”

If you’re thinking about reducing consumables waste, you’re already on the right path. Change doesn’t have to be big, it just has to begin. When labs rethink together, sustainable science becomes a lot more doable, one experiment at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is recycling not the best first step for reducing lab waste?

Recycling feels visible and familiar but it's the last of the waste hierarchy's 'Rs' - reduce and reuse both come first. Recycling consumes energy and resources. Rethinking whether you need the consumable at all is far more impactful.

What are the most wasteful single-use consumables in a lab?

Pipette tips, falcon tubes, gloves, and wipes are the most ubiquitous single-use plastics in most lab environments. They're convenient and help prevent contamination, but they fill bins quickly and represent ongoing procurement cost and embedded carbon that's largely invisible until you start tracking it.

How do I rethink my lab's use of disposable plastics?

Audit a single consumable - say pipette tips or falcon tubes - for a week to see how many you actually use versus need. Look for protocols that reuse glassware, share buffers, or scale down volumes so you use fewer tubes per experiment. Even a 10% reduction at the protocol level compounds quickly across a year.

What is the 'rethink before recycle' approach to lab sustainability?

'Rethink before recycle' means questioning whether a single-use item is needed at all before deciding how to dispose of it. The goal is to avoid creating the waste in the first place, then reuse where possible, then recycle as the last resort - not to default to recycling as the green choice without examining what's upstream.