Styrofoam coolers

Styrofoam coolers are widely used for cold shipping materials used in life science laboratories.  How to recycle these coolers is a question that frequently comes up for our labconscious readers.  Styrofoam is recyclable but the availability of this service is rarer due to the cost of transporting 100% of its volume to a facility, to recover only 3% of plastic.  That's a lot of air space!

The quick informational video below does a great job explaining why innovation is needed at the point of use and disposal for Styrofoam materials. Let's face it. This is a problem encountered with Styrofoam items by scientists and non-scientists alike.  The video also quickly covers why paper is not always recyclable - and can actually be responsible for greater energy expenditure than in the "life cycle" of Styrofoam items.  

Our Labconscious supporter, New England Biolabs is a life science company that has a foam shipping take-back program for its customers. Unfortunately, this type of service is not applicable to research institutions that need to ship their own materials which are biohazardous.  In this case, either a fully biodegradable cold shipper, or a point-of-use foam recycling system would be ideal solutions!  

Best wishes on all your lab bench results! Thank you for thinking about running a green lab.  Follow our blog and our Twitter account for labconscious news.