Circle of life

The conundrum of circular lab plastics is making us go round in circles

As much as 80% of carbon emissions attributed to biotech & pharma companies can come from their supply chain and reliance on carbon-intensive products like plastic.

Single-use plastic is often a necessary and sensible choice for many applications and cannot be replaced or used in smaller quantities without impacting scientific outcomes.

Although some plastic waste streams in pharma and biotech are already recycled, the reality is that these are typically processed into lower grade products like packaging materials or incinerated in ‘downcycling’.

It would be better to use these raw materials more circularly. In a circular economy, existing materials are reused and recycled for as long as possible. Unfortunately, circularity is frequently overlooked as a genuine contender for making impact due to the difficulty of implementation.

One company, Polycarbin, claims to be the first to manufacture circular economy lab products, such as pipette tips and centrifugation tubes. The tips themselves are made from ‘virgin’ plastic to maintain strict scientific performance standards, but Polycarbin uses a circular solution for the pipette tips. After use, these tips can be collected and processed into other products that can go back into the lab.

Plastic surgery

The company’s pipette tip boxes are made from 100% recycled resin, while other products in its range contain between 20-70% recycled plastic. Compared to virgin plastic, the emissions associated with these recycled products are around 71% less. The real benefit, however, may be even greater as this figure does not take into account the additional benefit of multiple cycles of plastic reuse.

Meanwhile, Polycarbin’s cloud-based platform tracks plastic saved from landfill and incineration in real time and indicates saved carbon emissions. Noah Pyles, COO of Polycarbin says, “Combining this waste stream reporting system with our circular economy products, we are able to build trust within the scientific community. And that trust translates to motivation and participation.”

Noah adds: “We’ve heard countless stories of scientists working in well-funded biotechnology companies and research institutions hand washing lab products to cut back on single-use plastic consumption. People in industry quickly recognised that better disposal practices of scientific plastics and sustainable procurement represent the shortest path to decarbonising their work.”

Looking to the future, Noah thinks it will be difficult for industry to eliminate virgin plastic entirely, because repeated heating cycles during re-extrusion degrade polymer quality. Work to extend the number of cycles through which polymers can be recycled could make a big difference.

Likewise, as more brands adopt the ‘design for circularity’ approach, recycling becomes more feasible, allowing expansion of the scope of circular products. Ultimately, Noah concludes, “Consumers are the leaders of this movement. If they continue to reward companies that design their products to fit into a circular economy, the rest will follow suit.”

Joseph Newcombe is Patent Attorney at Mewburn Ellis. Go to mewburn.com