Waste
Reduce
Order the right amount of reagents you need. Downsize your experiments.
In the lab
Order and prepare the right amount of product you need. Consider requesting an aliquot from another lab before placing your order, for a preliminary experiment.
Downsize your experiments. The 384-well plates work as well as the 96-well ones, and half-area microplates are also available.
Prepare bulk master mixes and concentrated stock solutions to reduce tips and tubes.
Refill tip boxes with rack or bulk tips.
Order centrifuge tubes in bulk to avoid useless polystyrene racks, a real ecological disaster!
Think twice before ordering single-packed sterile plastic ware. Do you need sterility? If not, prefer non-sterile plastic packed in bulk.
Adapt the size of your container to reduce waste*
For optimal use, bleach for decontamination must be diluted to final 0.5 to 2% sodium hypochlorite. Higher concentrations will only lead to increased hazardous waste and irritating gases.
Take particular care in the labelling of your samples to avoid unnecessary discarding or duplication (date, content...).
Pool your orders to reduce the number of deliveries or use on-site storage (NEB, Thermo, Promega).
Choose suppliers who offer to take back the packaging of their consumables (Pan, Dutscher, Starlab ...).
In the office
Think twice before printing. When needed, print in recycled paper.
Print on both sides of paper and/or several pages on one sheet.
*
e.g. For aliquoting few µL of a drug, prefer 200-µl tubes.
e.g. Adapt the size of your electrophoresis cuve or Coplin jar to reduce the solvent.
e.g. Adapt the size of your multichannel pipette reservoir.