By SHANNON O. WELLS
With six months of data to draw from since its spring 2024 inception, the Polycarbin Pipette Tip Box Recycling pilot program appears to be operating as designed — to help campus labs reduce landfill waste and single-stream recycling contamination from inappropriately “wish-cycling” lab items.
“That program has diverted 2,409 pounds of laboratory plastics from the landfill since the start of the program,” said Sam Chan, assistant director of Pitt Sustainability. “People have been really leaning into it. We can see that our scientists and our researchers really want to make a difference and make sure that they’re doing their best— as they’re finding and discovering new things — to also make sure there’s no harm being done to the planet.”
Rolled out last May, the pilot program — the brainchild of two former Pitt School of Medicine students who founded the Massachusetts-based Polycarbin recycling platform — focuses on pipette tip boxes, the casings that contain lab wafers and pipette tips.
Through a combination of mail-back and drop-off/hauling, the program allows used lab plastics to be recycled into new items, creating a circular process. Labs that take part can reduce their environmental impact while helping the University achieve its goal of 25% landfill waste reduction by 2030.
In partnership with Pitt Surplus Property and Logistics, large Gaylord-brand cardboard pallet boxes filled with the used plastics are taken to Pitt Surplus’ Thomas Boulevard location. There they are placed in a shipping container that can hold eight “Gaylords,” as Chan explained. When the container is full, Pitt Sustainability notifies Polycarbin, which sends a large truck to pick it up.
Polycarbin, which has locations in Massachusetts and San Francisco, will pick up any brand of pipette-type boxes.
“And they have figured out a recycling process — their secret sauce — to, instead of downgrading that plastic into something else, like a plastic bag that’s not used in laboratory situations, they’ll take that plastic and turn it into a new laboratory product,” she said.
Chan touted the initial success of the recycling program as well as a newly launched rebate program to encourage labs to upgrade their older ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers to more efficient, Energy Star-rated models as examples of Pitt Sustainability ending 2024 on a high note. As 2025 gets underway, these programs set the stage for increased lab-related sustainability opportunities.
“I would say that labs, because they are in such a unique situation, have tons of opportunities for innovations within sustainability,” she said. “Because research is ever-evolving, ever-developing, so is sustainability, so there’s gonna forever be evolving solutions in that space.”
The pipette tip-box recycling was initially conceived as a mail-back only program, but Chan and her sustainability colleagues strived to avoid having thousands of single-use mail-back boxes going to Polycarbin’s Massachusetts facility. They worked to create a hauler program to serve Pitt’s more centrally located labs.
“I know that it’s a trek, but I really think that their circular economy solution is worth that trek, and that their program is pretty unique,” Chan says. “(Polycarbin) were really willing to work with me and be like, ‘OK, we understand that you don’t want the 2,000 (Pitt) labs sending back their own boxes that were being individually shipped to here.’”
The company subsequently created the hauler solution for Pitt, in which Chan said one truck picks up a load of recyclable plastic two or three times a year. Adding to the Polycarbin program’s appeal, she added, is its roots in Pitt’s School of Medicine.
“The founders actually were at medical school and got discouraged about how much single-use plastic was being used in medical research, and they came up with a solution,” Chan explained. “So it’s kind of a cool circular-economy solution, but also kind of like a circular story as well.”
So far, those in the Pitt lab community, she noted, are “really leaning into the program. I’m really happy that we have over 2,000 pounds in the first six months. For a recycling program that is new to everybody to go this well within the first six months, I’m extremely happy.”
Freezer rebate program
On the recently launched ULT freezer 30% rebate program, Chan said the freezers Pitt research labs use to hold samples are typically kept anywhere between negative 80 to negative 70 degrees.
“And the older ULT models, like anything before 2018, typically use as much energy as (an entire) home,” on the order of about 20 kilowatt hours a day, according to the Department of Energy. “They are a huge, huge user of energy on our campus.”
Looking into the number of ULT freezers — which have a 12-to-15-year lifespan — purchased for Pitt’s labs between 2008 and 2017, Chan came up with about 743 “that could be more energy efficient.”
“And I mean, it’s a pretty stark difference,” she said.
Where an old ULT uses around 20 kilowatt hours a day, the most efficient, Energy Star-certified model now on the market consumes between 3.9 to 6.7 kilowatt hours a day. “That’s almost an 80% reduction in your energy usage.”
Looking at the 743 aging ULTs, Chan said she thought, “if we were able to replace all those all at once, we’d be reducing our electricity demand on campus by over almost 4 million kilowatt hours a year.”
The 30% rebate is intended to remove the older, less-efficient models from circulation.
“We’re trying to get those older ones offline. Because a lot of times what researchers … when they upgrade their equipment, they’ll gift their old equipment to somebody else in their building,” she said, noting she’s heard rumors about ULTs from the 1980s still being used on campus.
“The way we structured this program is to incentivize people to replace ULTs that are still working (with) the more energy efficient models,” she added, “and to completely retire those through Pitt Surplus to make sure that they are responsibly recycled.”
Chan said those skeptical that upgrading lab freezers creates a clear path to sustainability might consider the cumulative benefits.
“If all researchers come together and upgraded their lab equipment, that’s a huge, huge savings,” she said. “That would be the equivalent of taking 1,444 gas cars off the road that typically drive around 10,000 miles a year. I mean, it’s a huge, huge amount of emissions and electricity savings, if we can all come together with this collective action.”
The ULTs being recycled must be from 2017 or earlier, “because that was when the first Energy Star certification came out for ultra-low temperature (freezers),” she said. “Before 2017, there was no Energy Star certification you could get on this piece of laboratory equipment.”
Those who apply will provide Pitt Sustainability information on their old ULT and the specification sheet for the new ULT they’re buying.
“They give us the invoice, and then they copy us on the email, or send us the email where Pitt Surplus is picking up their ULT, and that’s all I need,” she said. “Then they can get a 30% rebate.”
Labs that decommission two old ULT freezers and replace them with one energy-efficient model of a similar size may be eligible to receive up to a 60% rebate, based on energy savings.
“If you have two medium-sized old ULTs (and) consolidate that into one large, really energy-efficient ULT, you could be eligible for a 60% rebate,” she said. “I’m really trying to help incentivize labs to replace equipment, even though it’s working, because they could really help drive down energy usage on campus by doing that, and they could reduce their own personal energy usage by about 80%.”
Funding for the ULT Freezer Energy Efficiency Rebate, which comes from the PittCAP Capital Fund and the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research, is limited and awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.
“If we’re reducing the amount of energy that we’re using on campus, we’re also reducing the amount of emissions,” she said. “Some of the funding came from there, and then also Research gave us funding.
Noting that she anticipates “a lot of applications” for the rebate program as 2025 gets going, Chan said the sustainability potential of Pitt labs will continue to be explored.
“I think it really speaks to how engaged and how much our population really wants to see a positive impact on the world,” she said, “that they’re leaning into these new innovations as soon as they’re made available.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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