Design Problem


Every year biomolecular laboratories generate a combined total of 5.5 million tons of plastic waste!

Between pipette tips, gloves, weighing boats, tubes, and flasks, the pile of single-use plastic grows to significant heights in the quest for scientific discovery.


Team Clean aims to provide an efficient, accessible, and cost-effective solution to this problem by utilizing liquid-handling robotics to wash and reuse single-use plastic labware.

We will develop and validate a series of labware washing protocols to increase sustainability and reduce recurring costs in the process.

These procedures will be made available to any laboratory in hopes to make a serious impact on the waste involved with biological innovation!

GOAL 1 - Develop a Solution To Reduce Plastic Waste in Biomolecular Labs


Team Clean is dedicated to sustainability in the field of biological engineering. We aim to provide a powerful solution that can make a major impact on the waste produced by labs around the world.

Objectives:

  • Develop effective and inexpensive decontamination solution for cleaning single-use plastic

  • Program protocols in Opentrons Python-based API for the cleaning and rinsing of common types of plastic labware

  • Compile procedures into an easy-to-use manual

GOAL 2 - Publish Findings in Synthetic Biology Journal

Team Clean wants to share our solution with the WORLD! All our findings will be available to labs of any size across the globe.

Objectives:

  • Submit initial abstract to journals in December

  • Draft and submit manuscript compiling our findings and providing direction to implementation into a workflow