Pipette Tips Sustainable Practices

• Tips are normally made of #5 plastic (polypropylene)
• Recycling Tips is not practical in Malawi

Options/Ideas

1.Reusing pipette tips boxes to avoid plastic waste (requires autoclave) Link

Buying tips in bulk
Refiling boxes
Autoclaving 

• requires autoclave availability
• extra work to do
• saves money
• reduces waste

2. Tip Cleaning Machine: Link 1 Link 2

Small System – Cleans 6-8 racks of pipettes/ hour or (a rack every 6 minutes)
Does not use heat 
Pipettes can be reused multiple times
Personal soap mixture can be used
Produces non-toxic waste BUT requires their special neutralizing buffer

• Price is unknown – Worrying
• Looks like a new product and might be expensive

3. Washing Tips - (thread) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/diybio/_deN5xNc6Wk

• Alconox soapy water - https://alconox.com/product-catalog/

remove almost everything biologic that might contaminate your next sample.

Then rinse. Was most preferred to reuse most of the plastics in the lab.

pipette tips DO survive autoclaving, so after rinsing off the Alconox with distilled water you can autoclave them in their box.

• A Low-Cost Approach to PCR: Appropriate Transfer of Biomolecular Techniques

https://hackteria.org/wiki/images/a/af/Low_cost_approach_to_PCR_-_2007.pdf Simple dilute Bleach HAs a lot of information for

• Pipette washing protocol from UCLA

http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/merchant/pdf/Pipettewashinginstructions.pdf

• $700 liquid handling machine – Open source 3D printing

http://2009.igem.org/Team:Washington-Software