Tips to save plastic in the lab

The usage of plasticware in the laboratory is cruical. There are studies stating that the global community of laboratories generates 4 times more waste than an equal area of office space.

Expressed in absolute numbers, they produce approximately 5 million tons of plastic waste annually. The former use of glass-based vessels has now almost completely given way to plastic.

The manufacturing costs, robustness, and purity of plastic-based products argue against the use of glass. In addition, many experiments are nowadays performed on a microliter or nanoliter scale.

For this purpose, vessels and tips with very fine dimensions are required, which cannot technically be manufactured from glass or only at extremely high cost. This means, the use of disposable plastic products in biomedical research laboratories is essential.

Are there ways to reduce the number of used consumables without making a compromise with sample safety, user safety, reproducibility,…?

Discover our tips

Smart experimental design of tip usage

Think and calculate: Which pipetting steps in which order make sense? By using a smart concept, you can easily save a significant amount of tips. Instead 40 tips, you can:

Focus on equal steps
Mastermix for 4 reagents: 4 tips
Transfer to 8 sample tubes: 1 tip
Sample transfer (at the end): 8 tips
Total: 13 tips
+ 1 Mastermix tube

Reduction: Eppendorf epT.I.P.S. Racks

We did our homework: The design change of the single-use racks resulted in a reduction of rack weight by 19 to 35%, depending on the tip volume class.

The rack weight directly correlates with the amount of Polypropoylene (PP) being used for the rack.

Reduction: Box + Reload system

In contrast to single-use racks, the reload or refill systems for pipette tips can be reused many times. Introduced in 2002, the system is fully autoclavable for up to 100x times. By using this reusable box, you can safe more than 50% of plastic (weight wise) over the life time of the reload system.

Foils & plastic bags

Consumables like tube, tips, and plates are packed in foils and plastic bags. This is needed to keep the plasticware clean. This packaging material is based on virgin raw material due to potential leachables caused by recycled plastic. The wrapping foils are normally made of LD-PE which can be recycled 100% (as long as this material is not contaminated). Some bags are partly made of composite materials due to sterility and leachables. As composite plastic is difficult to recycle, Eppendorf works on alternative materials.

Do you really need 100% of the volume?

Are you aware of the tube volume sizes outside the classic 1.5/ 2.0/ 15/ 50 mL? A sample of 3 mL stored in a 15 mL vial is a waste of material and a waste of space in the freezer. A 5 mL vial will save a lot of plastic and will increase your storage room at -80°C. This saving will not fit for all your experiments but it is a starting point.