By MARTY LEVINE
What uses the most energy during research on Pitt’s main campus?
Freezers.
Not your ordinary freezers atop your ordinary fridge, but rather the ultra-low temperature freezers used to preserve research materials, says Michael Taylor, cold storage specialist for Thermo Fisher Scientific. Taylor and reps from 26 other suppliers of green goods were on hand for Pitt’s first combined Green Office & Green Lab Sustainable Supplier Show March 28 in the William Pitt Union Ballroom.
“Pitt will be one of the first institutions to get wind of what is coming,” said Taylor, who was on hand for a talk about Thermo Fisher’s April 8 roll out of a brand-new, most-energy-efficient, ultra-low-temperature model (we’re talking -80° C here, or -112° F). “One of the greatest impacts you can have with your sustainability is replacing your equipment,” he advised.
Thermo Fisher was also offering another lab item that no longer needs cold storage at all: a cell culture called Gibco BenchStable Media, which can be stored at room temperature.
Other frontiers of sustainability on display at the Sustainable Supplier Show included everything from recyclable shoe coverings and pipette racks to pens made out of 70 percent plastic recovered from beaches, lest it migrate to sea on the waves. Thermo Fisher, which had several displays, even offered colored tape (for labeling lab items) that is made from non-toxic materials wrapped around a recyclable paperboard tube.
The show, said Emily Potoczny, sustainability engagement manager for Pitt who was stationed at the event’s entrance, “was meant for anybody who works for Pitt to see what some of our contracted suppliers have to offer. These are folks you can buy from right now from the PantherExpress system.”
“We wanted to share some of the most sustainable items offered by our suppliers,” said Jennifer Barnes, supplier diversity and sustainability manager and in charge of the show. “It's a good way for people to be aware of everything.”
Recyclable racks for pipette tips, traditionally tossed after use, are apparently recycling’s holy grail, as several suppliers displayed fresh designs. That included Corning, which had a new hybrid pipette tray with paper components that used 70 percent less plastic than the usual rack. The company also now offers to take back their packaging, postage paid, for recycling.
Even microscopes are becoming more sustainable, shown by Hunt Optics, distributor of Evident Scientific products here in the North Hills. Hunt’s version has gone from mercury bulbs to LEDs, creating less waste and less power consumption too.
Medline, for medical and surgical supplies and other lab “consumables” — and the number one glove manufacturer in the world, they say — was promoting its smart box that lets you pull out those protective gloves one at a time instead of mistakenly getting, and contaminating, a handful of hand protectors. And they are even recyclable in most instances, apart from certain biohazardous uses.
Fume hoods, designed to keep the noxious chemical effluents of lab work from entering our lungs and the air in general, are usually connected to the local HVAC system, requiring a bunch of energy. The folks from Avantar were promoting fume hoods that didn’t need such HVAC connections. The company also featured a program for burning the hoods’ spent filters back at the manufacturing facility in a manner that allowed no residue to escape — and captured the energy for the manufacturing process.
Pitt’s other sustainability-focused offices were well-represented.
Surplus Property’s logistics coordinator, John Ruggieri, noted that “a lot of people who work for the University aren't aware of what we have to offer. I think you'd be surprised at the medical equipment we get,” for instance, including incubators and microscopes.
Mike Papale, manager of business hospitality and auxiliary services at Surplus Property’s Thomas Boulevard facility (www.pittsurplus.com), agrees that their services could use more exposure: “Along with reselling (surplus items), we’re running various specialty recycling streams for the University,” he noted, for electronic waste, batteries, textiles, scrap metal and cardboard, and will soon branch out into polycarbon recycling for labware, in a pilot program with the sustainability office.
The Dietrich School’s Scientific Stockroom (https://www.researchservices.pitt.edu/DSS) had reps on hand as well. Jeremy Biroscak and Josh Jones, who run the office, explained that the Stockroom can order and deliver supplies to Dietrich departmental programs at the Pittsburgh campus’ approximately 2,000 labs, hospitals and other research facilities — even the ones not officially on campus. They also are a recycling and reuse site for the boxes that hold all this material. Ordering from the Stockroom can help research programs that may not need a full case of this chemical or that beaker, said Jones — and they can serve as a resource for supply questions as well.
Yes, there were traditional office supply providers too — principally Office Depot. Besides those new pens made from beach discards, their most unusual new and greener item was a kind of bubble wrap that wraps without the bubbles. Called Scotch Cushion Lock from 3M, it is a perforated and folded paper mesh that comes in rolls for packing boxes more sustainably. It did not look poppable in any manner, but you can’t have everything.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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