When teaching students or new colleagues about the sustainable practices standard in our labs or introducing opportunities for optimizations we have found, it is often effective to tie these tips to topics that are already valued.
In this way, we avoid overwhelming the student or colleague with sustainability as yet another factor to keep in mind. Moreover, we can immediately outline how sustainable practices can save time, money, and improve data quality.
Best Practices
Teaching students best practices can often feel dry and tedious; however, they matter. Point out how these practices help them work more efficiently, faster, and, of course, more sustainably—thereby linking internal and external motivators.
Knowing When (and Where) to Reuse Lab Plastics
One of the best skills you can teach your students and colleagues is protocol literacy: knowing where absolute precision is required and where it is not. As one of my previous mentors said: “If I tried to do every step with absolute precision, I would never finish my day.” The same applies to sustainability: differentiate where contamination poses a real risk—such as in qPCRs or when working with delicate samples—and where it does not, like in many washing steps or some qualitative check-ups (e.g., cutting controls run on agarose gels).
In the latter case, many items can be reused or rinsed between steps. A serological pipette reused for a simple transfer or wash isn’t sloppy; it’s efficient both in terms of plastic and time.
Setting Up Master Mixes
Teaching students to create master mixes instead of preparing each reaction separately is fundamental. By pipetting larger volumes at once, accuracy improves significantly—pipetting 50 µL is inherently more precise than 1 µL, especially for inexperienced hands. Plus, you’ll reduce the number of pipette tips used and streamline your workflow.
A simple yet powerful tip: always pipette water first. When preparing a master mix for PCR or similar protocols, adding water to the mix first allows you to reuse the same tip for multiple ingredients—cutting tip use dramatically without compromising sterility. It’s not just efficient; it’s smarter lab work.
Choosing Kits With Less Plastic
Kits are a bit like a scientific black box. We have a rough idea of how they work, but many components remain obscure. On top of that, they often come with excessive plastic packaging or single-use tools. Teach students to scrutinize suppliers and challenge default kit choices—both in terms of packaging and how well they work. Teach them that purchasing decisions should align with priorities, not habit.
Turning Instruments On/Off with Intent
Forgetting to preheat a water bath or leaving a heat block containing cells running can cause an entire day to fall apart. Therefore, hand over the responsibility for turning instruments on or off to your students—they will learn to plan ahead, ensuring they know which equipment needs to be prepped in advance. It’s a great way to teach them to save energy, optimize time management, and prevent mishaps.
Health & Safety
Safety measures are often considered trivial and unnecessary. We can hardly make people care more about themselves, but we can teach them the importance of proactively following these measures to ensure a more sustainable research practice:
Green Chemistry and Safer Solvents
Hazardous solvents are as much a risk for health as they are for the environment. Teaching students to check whether greener alternatives are available can have an outsized impact over time.
For example, greener tissue fixation, xylene-free mounting media, or, in HPLC, simply tightening solvent bottle caps reduces evaporation and protects both the user and the environment. It’s a great way to make people care about the often tedious safety instructions.
Fume Hoods & Vapors
Often, shutting the sash seems like a trivial activity. However, make students aware that the sash is their friend, preventing them from breathing in what might cause cancer 20 years later. Additionally, there are numerous different models, but several fume hoods simply release the sucked air into the outside. Meaning, we don’t breathe them in directly, but it doesn’t mean these fumes are gone. Teach students to think beyond the here and now. Once it clicks, they will appreciate you taking the time to care for them.
Finally, let’s mention closing liquid waste container lids or installing evaporation lids on HPLCs. Of course, you can follow a similar strategy to the example above.
Protocol Optimization
Protocols are often handed down without question. By teaching students to actively assess, rethink, and optimize protocols, you will teach them a skill that few researchers have—making them more sustainable while laying important foundations for the rest of their careers:
HPLC gradients are often passed down by users. However, especially in modern systems, you can optimize these gradients for much shorter run times without sacrificing data quality. By adjusting both the flow rate and gradient profile, you can reduce solvent consumption significantly, making the process more sustainable, saving time, and reducing costs.
Optimizing protocols can sometimes mean pivoting approaches. A good example is Solid-Phase Microextraction (SPME), a method that can drastically lower solvent use and waste, offering a more sustainable alternative to traditional liquid-liquid extraction methods. Additionally, it is often easier and quicker to perform.
Instrument Use
All too often, we use instruments without truly knowing how they work. Let’s be honest: we understand the basic principle and are interested in the results. However, if you want to give your students deeper insights (enabling them to prevent damage and optimize workflows in the future), you will often also give them the tools to identify opportunities for sustainable practices. Here are some examples:
HPLC Column Design
Explain to students that the choice of HPLC column impacts both analysis efficiency and environmental footprint. Smaller particle diameters in HPLC columns lead to better resolution and shorter analysis times. When paired with narrower internal diameters, students can reduce solvent usage by up to 80%, creating more efficient experiments and reducing resource consumption. This practice allows students to understand how thoughtful equipment choices can result in significant sustainability gains without sacrificing scientific integrity.
Mass Spectrometry & NMR
In mass spectrometry, liquid nitrogen is often used in large quantities, contributing significantly to the environmental footprint. Newer instruments, however, use optimized desolvation techniques that reduce liquid nitrogen requirements. This is a good opportunity to introduce students to the inner workings of an MS. Similarly, if you work with NMRs, address the use of liquid helium, allowing you to connect it to helium recovery as a sustainable practice that helps mitigate helium limitations due to market conditions.
Cleaning and Defrosting the -80°C Freezer – Safeguarding Samples
Freezers tend to be the lab’s cold, humming background companion—until one breaks. Properly maintaining -70°C freezers, including filter cleaning, defrosting, and ensuring that samples are properly stored, will save energy and safeguard samples. Actively including students in these practices might annoy them initially but signals that your lab cares about sample safety and reliability. And students will thank you later for it.
PCR Holding Temperatures
A small adjustment in PCR machine settings—such as increasing the holding temperature from 4°C to 12°C or even 14°C—can reduce energy consumption by more than 40%. You should emphasize that this practice can also help reduce condensation and mechanical strain. Over time, this leads to extended equipment lifespan and fewer maintenance needs.