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Lab Plastic Recycling in Medtech

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Every year, life science labs burn through mountains of single-use plastic, and most of it gets incinerated as biohazard waste. On this episode of Bio Break, Nick Allan and Nigel Syrotuck ask whether lab plastic recycling is actually possible, and stumble onto a company trying to prove it is.

The plastic problem behind every lab bench

Nick can guess the well count on a plate without counting, because he works with these plates constantly. That familiarity extends to something less convenient: the sheer volume of single-use plastic that passes through the lab. Nick describes going through tons of it every year, much of it contaminated with bacteria, bodily fluids, and other biological material that has to be checked and handled with precision before it is incinerated as biohazard waste. It is a routine Nick finds frustrating, comparing it to how people diligently sort their household recycling and then head into a workplace that generates plastic waste at an entirely different scale.

How lab plastic recycling could work

While looking into the problem, Nick found a company called Polycarbin, founded in 2020 by physician scientists. Polycarbin is building what the hosts describe as a circular economy for lab plastic: different labs can send in various types of polycarbonate and other lab materials, including latex gloves, and have them reprocessed. Rather than becoming a downcycled consumer product, the recycled material is redirected back into the lab supply chain.

Could recycled lab plastic apply to medical devices?

Nigel, thinking as a medical device designer, connects this to recycled plastic kids’ toys at home and wonders whether a similar model could extend to medical devices, and whether contamination during the recycling process would be a concern. Nick is cautious. He only came across Polycarbin recently, and says the jury is still out on how far the model can go. Both hosts plan to keep an eye on the company over the next few years.

What this episode covers

  • How lab teams estimate plastic waste volume without counting individual items
  • Why single-use plastics make up a major share of research lab waste
  • What happens to lab plastic once it’s contaminated with biological material
  • How Polycarbin’s circular economy model reprocesses lab plastic into new lab products
  • The open question of whether recycled lab plastic could apply to medical device manufacturing
  • Why the hosts are taking a wait-and-see approach to this recycling model

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