Plastic Recycling Program
We Recycle Pipet Tip Boxes & Reagent Bottles from All Vendors!
At Mt. Baker Bio, we believe “Our Future is Green.” One of our goals as a local company is to find a way to minimize how our scientific community impacts the environment. Recent data suggested that merely 12% of all life science laboratory plastics are being recycled. We believe a large contributor to that number is your empty polypropylene tip racks and reagent bottles. Every year, more that 1100 square miles of non-recycled plastic waste is leaving our labs and being dumped in landfills. Polypropylene does not naturally decompose and most laboratories are not giving it a chance to be recycled. Repeated autoclaving will render most plastics non-useful and therefore assure it will be dumped in the landfill.
In 2009, we initiated the first in-house recycling program for laboratory plastics that includes the collection, sterilization, re-racking, re-grinding and re-use of lab plastics. This recycling program is designed to immediately aid in the efforts to bring recycling into the laboratory environment and assure that any useful plastic material can be put to good use. Mt. Baker Bio is certain this program will help everyone do their part to become increasingly environmentally friendly by eliminating waste, recycling where possible and embracing the environment.
Contact Mt. Baker Bio today to start a recycling program at your institution.
What is recycled?
- Pipet Tip Boxes
- Non-toxic Reagent Bottles (PET, HDPE< PP)
What happens to the plastic we pick-up:
- A significant number of the plastic boxes are actually sterilized, re-filled and used by various labs.
- Polypropylene re-grind is used by Mt. Baker Bio to make new lab products such as the ErgoEasels ™ molecular workstations. We currently have 10 new products being developed utilizing recycled pipet tip boxes.
- All remaining plastic including PET bottles are recycled via direct plastic recycling partnerships.
Qualifications for program:
- All Mt. Baker Bio customers qualify for free recycling.
- Our commitment to the environment is growing:
In 2011 Mt. Baker Bio decided to up the stakes a bit and become the industry's first 100% green supply company. Since April 2011, Mt. Baker Bio has focused exclusively on green products & services.
Contributing Companies:
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
- University of Washington
- Cellnetix
- Cephaid
- Precision Genome Engineering
- Institute for Systems Biology
- Children's Hospital Research
- University of British Columbia
