Author: Devon Hucek
Editors: Ryan Schildcrout, Sarah Bassiouni, & Will Dana
Illustrator: Saaj Chattopadhyay
New research papers are published daily, reporting advances in every scientific field. However, science can’t happen without proper equipment and materials, many of which are made out of plastic. Why? Plastic is often the cheapest available material and is safer than glassware, which has a much higher likelihood of breakage. A study done at the University of California-Santa Barbara found that 80% of laboratory plastic waste at MIT consisted of pipette tip boxes alone. A microbiology lab in Edinburgh, UK found that in a four week span, they had produced 97 kg (213.8 lbs) of plastic waste. Using plastic is not inherently bad, especially since there are many available resources and regulations (both local and state) for recycling and reusing plastic waste. However, the volume of unrecyclable plastic waste generated in labs across the globe is massive, and seems like an impossible problem to tackle. Enter, bioplastics.
Continue reading “How can bioplastics help curb our dependency on lab plastics?”
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