[labnetwork] Inquiry about any disposable glove recycling programs currently implemented by any labs

Tue Jan 18 07:45:03 EST 2022

As with any recycling program, you may want to think about what comes from the other end of it.
Nitrile is a pretty specialized plastic, so I doubt a separate recycling stream is justified just by low volume of it. Even if it is,  with inherited degradation of recycling there is no way to use recycled material for safety-critical applications, such as gloves or seals
Looks like nitrile can be an add-on to ABS recycling - again with degradation uses of the product would be relegated to low-grade stuff like traffic cones.  Given that ABS is already code 7, most likely we're talking about some specialized recycling of factory waste, not general collection process.
If anything, I would look at this  report: https://austroads.com.au/latest-news/use-of-recycled-plastic-in-asphalt
Use of recycled plastic in asphalt | Austroads<https://austroads.com.au/latest-news/use-of-recycled-plastic-in-asphalt>
Monday, 12 April 2021. Austroads has published a comprehensive overview of the type, volume, and price of recycled plastics and their possible uses in asphalt.
austroads.com.au

If nothing else, you may get a publication or two out of qualifying tests.
________________________________
From: Tatiana Pinedo Rivera <tatiana.pinedo at monash.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 1:29 AM
To: Michael Yakimov <yakimom at sunypoly.edu>
Cc: Rachel Schoeppner <rlschoeppner at ucsb.edu>; labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] Inquiry about any disposable glove recycling programs currently implemented by any labs

Absolutely Michael,
Our gloves are nitrile gloves (the white cleanroom type in the cleanroom (from OnBoard Solutions) and blue in the non-cleanroom labs (from MediFlex)).
Thank you for the tip about Kimberly-Clark, they do not supply our cleanroom gloves, but I can still contact them.

You actually gave me the idea of contacting my local glove suppliers. Let's see what their response is. Actually it might be a really good idea to contact all our consumable suppliers and force them to implement programs to collect waste and do something useful with it. If all the cleanroom facilities and other manufacturing facilities, University labs, etc start to do this, there is going to be a point where these companies might actually do something about this issue either because they will find a financial benefit to do it or hopefully out of a sense of environmental responsibility.

Michael, can I ask you if your facility is already part of a sustainability program? Would you and your management consider starting one?

If anyone is interested in having an informal meeting about sustainability in cleanrooms and other similar facilities, please get in touch to organise one. Or if such a meeting already exists, please share the invitation ;)

Cheers from Australia!

Tatiana Pinedo Rivera, PhD
Nanolithography and Characterisation Team Leader
Senior Process Engineer

Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication
ANFF Victoria
151 Wellington Road, Clayton VIC 3168 Australia

P: +61 (0)3 9905 9660
E: tatiana.pinedo at nanomelbourne.com<mailto:tatiana.pinedo at nanomelbourne.com>
W: http://nanomelbourne.com

[https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1grGJ0x7zSGEDjFMQ_9V7yfxjLIrHtzro&revid=0B2svxH10JkpxbVE5akRHRC8rY0NKZEVkRTJtNU5VR3ZvU3dNPQ]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2022 at 12:36, Michael Yakimov <yakimom at sunypoly.edu<mailto:yakimom at sunypoly.edu>> wrote:
You may want to clarify what kind of gloves are you using.
My impression that PVC cannot really get recycled, so is latex. For nitrile gloves, Kimberly-Clark purportedly has a recycling program which their customers can participate.

Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>
________________________________
From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu>> on behalf of Tatiana Pinedo Rivera <tatiana.pinedo at monash.edu<mailto:tatiana.pinedo at monash.edu>>
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2022 7:04:46 PM
To: Rachel Schoeppner <rlschoeppner at ucsb.edu<mailto:rlschoeppner at ucsb.edu>>
Cc: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu> <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] Inquiry about any disposable glove recycling programs currently implemented by any labs

Dear Rachel,

Sorry I do not have an answer for you. But we at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, one of the Australian National Fabrication Facility centres are extremely interested in setting up a similar program. We have a quite active Green Impact Team and we have been trying to make our cleanroom slightly less wasteful (for instance, we are encouraging reuse of epaks and wafer/sample carriers where possible (they were previously all going to the bin after one use), we are also collecting Silicon waste for the first time (previously it was all going to the landfill)).

We recently started to collect our lab (packaging) soft plastic waste but the University we are affiliated to (Monash University) can only collect soft-plastic (LDPE) of very high quality, uncontaminated, not-dyed (only transparent), it should be slightly stretchable before it rips and should not make a crinkly noise when scrunched, no tape, no labels...

For our "domestic" soft-plastic collection, which we also started collecting in the kitchen area, rules are much more flexible and thankfully we in Australia have the RedCycle program which collects all sorts of soft plastics from plastic bags to candy and chips wrappers. I wonder whether they might be able to help.

Ideally we would like to start collecting our disposable cleanroom overshoes which are made out of a crinkly blue plastic and gloves, similar to you, we produce large amounts of this type of waste.

Of course things are a bit different here in Australia, but if you have received responses regarding this topic, could you please let me know?
If you have implemented other things in the cleanroom to make your workplace a bit more sustainable, would you mind sharing some ideas? I have been thinking for a while that we should join a group of cleanroom (or other manufacturing) facilities who have all embraced (or are trying to) a sustainable approach, if such a group exists, if it doesn't we should start one!

Thanks in advance,

Tatiana

Tatiana Pinedo Rivera, PhD
Nanolithography and Characterisation Team Leader
Senior Process Engineer

Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication
ANFF Victoria
151 Wellington Road, Clayton VIC 3168 Australia

P: +61 (0)3 9905 9660
E: tatiana.pinedo at nanomelbourne.com<mailto:tatiana.pinedo at nanomelbourne.com>
W: http://nanomelbourne.com

[https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1grGJ0x7zSGEDjFMQ_9V7yfxjLIrHtzro&revid=0B2svxH10JkpxbVE5akRHRC8rY0NKZEVkRTJtNU5VR3ZvU3dNPQ]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2022 at 09:23, Rachel Schoeppner <rlschoeppner at ucsb.edu<mailto:rlschoeppner at ucsb.edu>> wrote:

Good Afternoon and Happy Monday!

I am looking into developing a recycling program for uncontaminated disposable gloves that my facility goes through in abundant quantities, with the eventual goal of expanding to similar labs on campus. It has become glaringly obvious that our facility, and ones like ours, use a vast number of gloves that just end up in a landfill to decompose over the course of many years to decades. I am hoping to start working to divert this waste stream and recycle as many gloves as we can by starting a disposable glove recycling program here at UCSB.

So as I am starting to gather data and more information about the best way to go about this, I was wondering if any of your labs have looked into similar initiatives that have been or are currently successful. If so, I would be very interested to know how these programs were started, what companies you might go through for the recycling since most public recycling centers do not process these types of plastics, and any ideas for how to make the program financially viable (break-even, not turn a profit) rather than a drain on resources, which could lead to the eventual failure of the program.

Thanks so much for your time!

All the best,

Rachel

—

Rachel Schoeppner, Ph.D

Nanostructure Cleanroom Facility Manager
California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)
University of California, Santa Barbara
rlschoeppner at ucsb.edu<mailto:rlschoeppner at ucsb.edu>
rachel at cnsi.ucsb.edu<mailto:rachel at cnsi.ucsb.edu>
(805)893-2296

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