We go through tons of gloves every day at the lab, that’s no secret. It may be for a good cause, like researching new forms of recovering resources from waste streams, expanding accessibility to clean water, and wastewater-based surveillance of diseases, but the fact is, most gloves used in labs end up in a landfill.

It’s this paradox that sparked the Green Labs Initiative here at UMass, spearheaded by the Butler, DeAngelis and Ma Labs. Of course gloves are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of reaching zero waste, but this still marks the undeniable challenge of identifying and addressing the iceberg at hand.

After seeing the recycling system at work in the DeAngelis Lab last year, students Lucca Mancilio, Li Han Chan and Madison Newman were eager to spread the word. As a gesture of good faith, the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering established two collection points for gloves, in the Teaching and Research labs, to kickstart the movement.

A survey sent out to the 385 Principal Investigators on campus, and showed a major interest of respondents on establishing a wider Green Labs program. The survey helped identify labs with their on sustainability practices in place, as well as highlight key concerns of each lab to be addressed.

Now, the goal is to establish 10 more collection points on campus by the end of the semester, and create a Green Lab Badge and Training course by the end of the schoolyear!

Stay tuned!