Zero-Waste Labs Advice
Ryan Weeks
Hello Green Lab planning Group!
I am curious if anyone has yet designated a lab or research department at their organization as "Zero-Waste" (90% diverted from landfill/incineration)?
If you have: do you include the chemical and biohazard waste within the allowable 10% or exclude it completely from your metrics?
My organization has two department that are both diverting a lot of their waste. One diverts nearly everything they are allowed (note: our organization declares all lab waste biohazardous and prohibits regular trash bins in labs) but still generates quite a lot of actual biohazardous waste due to the nature of their work. Another also diverts nearly all their waste and generates close to no chemical or biohazardous waste, even by our organizations policies. Would you designate both as Zero-Waste or just the latter department?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Ryan Weeks, PhD (he/him)
Green Labs Specialist | Office of Sustainability
Johns Hopkins University
3910 Keswick Road | Suite N-3100 | Baltimore, MD
Find out more about our green lab initiatives:
Green Labs Website | Join the Green Labs Listserv
Ask me about the JHU Sustainability Plan:
Learn About the Plan | Explore the Community of Interest
Star Scott
Hey Ryan,
Thanks for bringing up this topic—it’s a good one. Between the labs you listed, I would say only the latter was zero waste. The reason for this is we can’t overlook or exempt our regulated waste streams when it comes to the impact it has on our institutions, the planet and the communities in which this waste is incinerated or disposed. It’s important to reflect the reality of our waste diversion, so we can continue to work towards greater diversion rates. Once our nonregulated waste is diverted, we can still continue to work on diverting/reducing regulated waste via green chemistry, micro-scaling experiments, sustainable procurement, etc. Also, we need to be mindful to not greenwash our diversion efforts (not that that’s what you were suggesting at all), but to ensure we holding a standard that can be compared between R1 and other research institutions.
We did a project at UGA in which 7 research labs aimed for zero waste for a 6 month period. The labs were able to achieve diversion rates between 65-86% including their regulated waste, so “low waste” was the outcome. Still, those are pretty amazing diversion rates for research spaces. Intervention and retraining was required weekly for the first six weeks, but after that, the waste streams maintained a high purity rate. The researchers could have continued (and have for most of the waste streams), but some of the waste streams don’t have institutionalized processes yet (hard to recycle waste streams that our team was transporting to the CHaRM during the project). We are working now to institutionalize these processes.
That’s amazing you even have one lab that can be classified as zero waste! That’s really commendable!!! WOW!
Thanks for bringing this topic up and I’m curious to hear what others have to share.
Best,
Star
Star Scott
Green Lab Program Manager she/her/hers
Facilities Management Division | University of Georgia
Chicopee No.1, 1180 E. Broad Street, Athens, GA 30602
Office: 706.542.7884 | Fax: 706.542.7679
star...@uga.edu | https://greenlab.uga.edu
I humbly acknowledge and honor the land and people of the Mvskoke/Muscogee Creek and Tsalaguwetiyi/Cherokee Nations on whose ancestral land University of Georgia is located, and I acknowledge and grieve for those enslaved people who were forcibly brought to these lands.
From: 'Ryan Weeks' via Green Labs Planning <green-lab...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 10:12 AM
To: green-lab...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Zero-Waste Labs Advice
[EXTERNAL SENDER - PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY]
--
--
** Please remember to change the subject header if you change topics **
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Labs Planning" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
green-labs-plan...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/green-labs-planning/BL0PR01MB5153014867FB6FC0772EC809F9649%40BL0PR01MB5153.prod.exchangelabs.com.
Gilly, Quentin Carl
|
Quentin
Gilly (he/him) FAS Sustainability and Energy Management Harvard University, Office for Sustainability |
anu verma
|
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/green-labs-planning/MN2PR07MB66695ADBB2E0830336EC3E308E6F9%40MN2PR07MB6669.namprd07.prod.outlook.com.
Lara Pes
Hi Ryan,
Apologies for the late reply. I agree with Star's assessment. I think that you need to include all waste types in your calculation. I recently studied the material for the TRUE zero waste certification, and this is my understanding. However, according to the TRUE certification material, you can include in the diversion calculation also waste that was avoided by re-design and reuse. I don't know if this helps at all, but maybe the first lab can boost its diversion rate by including the % of waste avoided by using glassware or other reusable alternatives to plasticware (in case they weren't already).
Best,
Lara
____________________
Lara Pes, PhD
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Sustainability Program Manager
Office of Energy & Sustainability
Weill Cornell Medicine
1300 York Avenue, LC-006
New York, NY 10065
T: 646.962.5109
lap...@med.cornell.edu
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/green-labs-planning/MN2PR07MB66695ADBB2E0830336EC3E308E6F9%40MN2PR07MB6669.namprd07.prod.outlook.com.