Inside STAT: Scientific labs look for new ways to become sustainable

 (ADOBE)

Plastic pipette tips, the plastic racks that hold them, plastic foam coolers to pack chemicals and cells: These are just some of the items that research labs throw away on a regular basis. There’s all the material waste — one estimate put the total plastic waste from research labs in 2014 at more than 5.5 million tons — but there’s also a massive amount of energy that’s consumed to keep the enterprise going, from special freezers to machines that keep equipment sterile. But labs are becoming more mindful about their waste, and researchers are looking for new ways to reduce their environmental footprint. STAT’s Megan Thielking has more here.