In labs across the world, heaping piles of pipette tip boxes spill out of trashcans and onto the floor. A single lab can burn through hundreds of pipette tips in an hour, creating enormous waste. In an attempt to minimize the waste, Jonathan Trent's protein chemistry lab at NASA AMES reuses all of its micropipette tip boxes.
"I don't know why everyone doesn't just reuse their tip boxes," says Trent. "It's so easy, and usually much cheaper." It only takes about 90 minutes to run a set of thirty boxes through an autoclave. While each box must be refilled with new tips, these are inexpensive when purchased in bulk. According to Trent's lab manager Suzanne Chan, the main cost is labor, and even this can be curbed by delegating it to interns or unlucky graduate students. This leaves Trent's garbage cans rather empty, as his bright blue and purple tip ...
