I understand that you started a lab recycling program. Can you tell me a bit more about this work? How did it start?
The program began during my first year in Microbiology. I’m a PhD student and in the DeAngelis lab we worked with a company that had been hired to recycle gloves and other materials. I thought this was cool because we generate a lot of waste even though we’re doing sustainability work. We constantly have to change gloves and use pipette tips. Professor DeAngelis was using grant money to start this recycling effort. Polycarbin is the recycling company’s name. They provided cardboard that we would fill, then the company takes the materials and recycles them to become new lab equipment, with the exception of gloves which don’t become new lab equipment but go into lawn furniture. It’s pretty cool. You can see a dashboard that shows how much is being recycled and really get a sense of how this circular economy model works.
I’m in a new lab now in Environmental Engineering and that lab had the same problems with not recycling. So, I spoke to the people in charge about using lab fees to pay for the recycling of gloves. Everyone liked the idea, and each lab now has their own recycling glove box that gets shipped out. A lot of other labs have reached out to me about how this works, but not every lab has the extra money to do this.
Another thing that happened in the labs was around the recycling of pipette wafers that hold the pipette tips. Every lab thought those were getting recycled, but Casella sent a letter saying the wafers were contaminating the recycling and were not being recycled. Everyone felt tricked. I talked to Ezra [Small] about implementing the Polycarbin company solution in other labs with less budget. Along with a fellow student, I made a poll of how many labs were interested and sent out through EHS [Environmental Health Sciences]. I talked to Kristi Ohr who made me aware of challenges to overcome. So I did research and found which buildings had the most labs and talked to Polycarbin and Avantor, another lab recycling company. Sergio Lopez, our rep at Avantor was super excited because he had tried this at his own university previously and I worked with him to find the right model to make this work from both money and buy-in standpoints. Eventually, I talked to Ezra as well, and showed him enough buy-in to prove the positive impacts.
Now we have a system with central collection points (starting with pipette wafers). Custodians help out as well. When the collection points are full, Polycarbin takes the recycling. Other labs are bringing waste as well. Now I want to expand to different materials and different buildings. We generate so much waste, and labs feel guilty because we’re doing sustainability work. Often, we hoard the waste for future recycling, that’s how much we don’t want to just throw the materials out. You should see some of the storage cabinets in these labs!
What do you find most rewarding about the sustainability related work you do?
Seeing how much people are getting excited about this recycling program and how much people genuinely care. Many people just don’t have the time or persistence to annoy the right people all the time, like I do. But everyone means well. It’s been rewarding also to see other labs reaching out to me. They come to me for circle economy information. They want to learn more. Seeing the project go full scale here was exciting despite the bureaucracy. Even alumni have reached out to me about how to implement this program in their own labs they work in. So this has gone from my lab to the campus and now to others out in the world.
Have you seen any tangible results from your efforts?
Definitely. Not only has everyone has been so supportive in helping me to see this pilot come to fruition, but there are other initiatives that will come from this work I’ve done. Already, there is another project around sorting recycling using AI. This lab recycling project sparked a lot of conversations that started the AI project going. And there will be others, too.
Why is sustainability important to you?
I come from São Paulo, Brazil, which is a really big city. They have dirty rivers and streets. Yet there is a lot of eco-tourism, and it annoys me to see the negative impacts from it. Why do people care only part-time? These eco-tourism companies are not recycling as they should. We shouldn’t have to fight somebody to have them recycle things that are easy to recycle. I started in biology for conservation but saw that the hole is deeper. Now my PhD is in water pollution control. But I already see a policy component that is deeper. Plastic pollution is so stupid. Most plastic recycling is a lie. Only 10% of plastics actually get recycled. We don’t have a good excuse to not do better. Fossil fuels make plastic. Scientists here care about sustainability. It’s low-hanging fruit to do better with recycling. Cost is the only barrier, but we’re at a well-funded public university that should be giving back. Sustainability is something that should be straightforward.
What would say to someone who is passionate about sustainability and considering applying to UMass?
UMass has a really great support system for projects like mine. Ezra and Laurie [Simmons] have supported my project and a lot of others. There’s a great infrastructure here to try out new technologies and feed startups. There are a lot of people who want to make good things happen here and the support we get helps get them through. My experience has been really good. If I’m doing 90 million other things and can still spearhead a green labs initiative project, others can, too.
Obviously, you’ve had hands-on, real-world experience with sustainability. What do you see yourself doing in the future?
Initially I wanted to go into conservation to fix the environmental mess by starting a new company. Now I’m realizing we need better policies. I’ve been doing policy work through UMass and recently was in Washington, D.C. talking to representatives about clean water. So now I’m thinking about working in policy and consulting to inform decision makers about sustainability and incentives that are needed. We really don’t need new technology; we need to apply it better around regulations.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about the work you do or UMass or sustainability in general?
My expertise is in water quality. UMass does a really great job in providing a support network for PhD students. There is the water center to demonstrate the effects of research. My project removes excess phosphorus from water bodies and then makes a new resource that can be used elsewhere. When I came here, I wanted to clean my river in São Paulo. Then I worked on the Charles River where I learned about the dangers of phosphorus. What I remove from the water renters the ecosystem as fertilizer, which is beneficial. I get a lot of support from UMass to scale this project up. Soon I’ll be able to apply this work to our own campus pond to show how a student project can work. Honestly, we’re fortunate to be in Massachusetts. Our reps are super supportive of the work we do. Other states are not supportive and just don’t get it. Same for clean energy, recycling, environmental justice. It’s a shame not to take advantage of that fully. I’m glad to be in Massachusetts for all the resources that are available. River cleanups and so much more are normal here and many other institutes work on this. There are organizations to bring underrepresented people into this field. No state is better than Massachusetts for support. We should take advantage of this.