WIN $1000 of product credit with the New England Biolabs Monarch Kit Upcycle Challenge! www.neb.com/MonarchUpcycle

What is Upcycling? 

The short answer: Intellectual fun!

Technically, upcyling is an activity that prevents waste by diverting material into the creating something new and useful. Cardboard material happens to have some excellent qualities for upcycling. You can find many examples online of it being used to create objects for organization. In a laboratory space, this can be as simple as making a useful freezer storage organizer. Outside the science lab, upcycling found objects has a long history in the fine arts. It's easy to cut, layer, decoupage, or collage cardboard with other materials.  Cardboard can be used artistically in sculptures, or crafted into photo frames, jewelry, or even light fixtures! Upcycling is so brilliant because it intersects science and engineering with arts and crafts. It's inventive, intellectual fun!

What is a Monarch Nucleic Purification kit?

Basically these kits are molecular biology tools.  New England Biolabs Monarch® Nucleic Acid Purification Kits are used to purify DNA into highly concentrated, small volumes. The kits are for plasmid miniprep, gel extraction and PCR cleanup. One of the goals of green lab initiatives is to reduce lab waste. Monarch® kits from NEB were created to have maximal performance AND minimal environmental impact. Their design uses minimal plastic.  Not only is Monarch kit packaging made from 100% post-consumer material, but it has also been thoughtfully designed to be reusable.

What is the Monarch Upcycle Challenge? Visit www.neb.com/MonarchUpcycle to win $1000 in credit!

Before May 31, 2017:

1. Find a new use for your Monarch kit packaging

2. Take a photo or video

3. Post to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using #NEBMonarchUpcycle

All submissions will be reviewed by a panel of NEB employees. One winner will be selected to receive either $1,000 in NEB product credit or a $1,000 donation to the charity of their choice. Also, for every submission**, NEB will donate $10 to the Monarch Joint Venture whose mission is to conserve the monarch butterfly population.

Personally, I think that a wing from the NEB Monarch buttlerfly could make a really fun necklace or bag charm. The whole Monarch kit box would fit well into a block tower castle...made by some of the creative children of scientists out there.  Good luck and have fun!

Featured
The Pipetting Pigeon Connects Donated Lab Supplies to Labs that Need Them
The Pipetting Pigeon Connects Donated Lab Supplies to Labs that Need Them

What would you do after retiring from a life long career in a field you loved? In April Blodgett’s case, she saw a way to give back by enabling science education and new avenues of research with her volunteer work as the “Pipetting Pigeon”.

Labconscious thanks April for the following interview and her sizable positive contribution to cost savings and waste diversion for life science! We hope her story will inspire biologists to find similar opportunities to conserve scientific resources.

Estimating the Carbon Cost of E. coli Transformations
Estimating the Carbon Cost of E. coli Transformations

Over the past year, Célia Algros took part in a project to discover microbial enzymes that could metabolize nucleosides in an internship at NEB. In an offshoot of this project, she also surveyed energy consumption, consumables, and waste generated to estimate the carbon cost of her E. coli transformations. The effort gave her a new appreciation for both the complexity of calculating carbon footprints and the sizable environmental impact of experiments.

A Garden to Inspire Sustainability at King’s College London
A Garden to Inspire Sustainability at King’s College London

Biologists often collaborate with non-scientists to improve environmental footprints. Events and spaces that remind us of our place in nature are a great way to connect everyone in a school or workplace to sustainability goals. Megan Williams, was a Research and Core Team Technician in the School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences at Kings College London, when she saw an empty outdoor space on her urban campus and envisioned a community garden for fellow biologists, students, staff, and campus workers.

How can you be sure your lab plastic is actually recycled?
How can you be sure your lab plastic is actually recycled?

You might be skeptical looking at plastic recycling in the lab and you probably should be. The expectation is that carefully sorted non-contaminated recycling collections will be remanufactured into products that will lower the demand for fossil fuel-based plastic. Unfortunately, according to the report, The Real Truth About the U.S. Plastics Recycling Rate, the conversion of plastic recycling collections into new materials, known as source reduction, has failed. Mixed plastic collections are especially at risk.

No Cost Low Cost Lab Sustainability Strategies
No Cost Low Cost Lab Sustainability Strategies

Good science can go further with lab changes that drive down costs. The problem is that biologists asked to cut overhead costs in biotech or pharma lab work may not know where to begin. A nice overview of universal approaches to improving lab sustainability was shared with Labconscious by Steve Miller from Lab ReNew.

Team Empowers Early Stage Climate Biotechnology
Team Empowers Early Stage Climate Biotechnology

Solutions for changing climates are in demand for agriculture, carbon dioxide removal, methane abatement, health impacts, and many more areas. There is funding available. What’s holding biotech back? Talented scientists often don’t know where to find funding and how to communicate their projects to investors in a compelling way.

Drosophila Delivers Sustainable Science
Drosophila Delivers Sustainable Science

Drosophila is strongly associated with scientific discovery, but this model organism also represents practical advantages for sustainability from research to industry. When you look at the field you can’t help being impressed by the resources conserved by the approach.

My Green Lab launches Impact Laboratories to enhance its advocacy and help meet new eco-label and research grant requirements
My Green Lab launches Impact Laboratories to enhance its advocacy and help meet new eco-label and research grant requirements

Biologists should be aware of two trends related to this update from My Green Lab. First, lab sustainability accreditations have emerged as requirements in research grant funding policies, and second, government regulators have raised the bar across the board for green claims and certifications to overcome a loss in public trust.

The First PLA Plastic Plates Offered for Tissue Culture
The First PLA Plastic Plates Offered for Tissue Culture

It’s always exciting when a maverick hits the mark. The first polylactic acid (PLA) Petri dish product is a one-to-one replacement for labs using fossil fuel-based plastic plates for cell culture. The maker, a small privately owned company called Diversified Biotech, Inc., collaborated with researchers from Brandeis University to develop it. Fostering eco-justice with a simple swap sounds good, but could this specialized PLA material even improve cell culture?

Why do most new biosafety cabinets still have UV lights?
Why do most new biosafety cabinets still have UV lights?

If ultraviolet light decontamination is not supported for class II biosafety cabinets in BSL-2 labs, and UV bulbs consume so much energy, why are most new BSC cabinets still ordered with UV lamps? Spoiler alert: some burgeoning bioscience applications require it, and fortunately, there are some options to improve its sustainability.