Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A microbiology department switches from disposable plastic Petri dishes to reusable glass for non-contaminated work, eliminating 12,000 plates per year.
- Is an instance
A consortium establishes a polypropylene tip-box take-back scheme with a regional recycler.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Office paper recycling is not lab plastic waste management.
- Not an instance
Sharps waste is regulated medical waste, not general lab plastic.
Editorial commentary
Research laboratories generate disproportionately high plastic waste per worker (estimated at around 5.5 million tonnes per year globally) because single-use sterility requirements dominate biomedical workflows. A growing literature documents reduction strategies (right-sizing tip boxes, washing and re-using racks, switching to glass where contamination risk allows, supplier take-back of polypropylene), as well as the policy challenge that most lab plastic is excluded from municipal recycling streams due to chemical or biological contamination concerns. Lab waste audits typically find that 30 to 50 percent of plastic could be eliminated, re-used, or routed to specialist recyclers without compromising science.
References
- Urbina et al. Nature 528 (2015) on lab plastic; LabConscious resource library.
Also known as
Lab plastics waste · Single-use lab plastics
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Plastic waste (research lab)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/plastic-waste-research-lab" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "Plastic waste (research lab)",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/plastic-waste-research-lab",
"description": "The single-use and multi-use polymer waste generated by laboratory research activities, including pipette tips, tubes, plates, gloves, packaging, and serological pipettes, much of which is contaminated and routed to incineration rather than recycling.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/sustainable-research-and-laboratory-operations/",
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"sameAs": [
"Lab plastics waste",
"Single-use lab plastics"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
