You may have heard of the 3R, but we prefer the 6Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink, Reject, Repair. We are strong advocates of reduce and rethink and will provide more information on how to put these into action in the “Getting Precise” section.

If you haven’t heard of these before, here’s a little perspective. All of them are great, but we want to make a few points. First, reduce where you can! We will further address how reducing can improve your experiments and give your research strategy another boost in the “Even Further” section. By reusing, you not only save resources but also save money, which can be a nice argument for less convinced researchers. Reducing also makes the largest impact on numbers and is easily noticed by producers, showing them that you care about sustainability and incentivizing them to do the same.

While reusing is a great idea, two aspects can become an issue. If you use glass instead of plastic, you may have to autoclave it. Additionally, people are often afraid of reusing, although it is rarely a problem. The challenge is that some solvents or chemicals may remain in tubes and contaminate them, which is also one of the biggest problems for recycling, as we need clean materials to achieve high efficiency.

Recycling means we can use the material again, but often we are actually downcycling. From a materials science standpoint, our plastics have some limitations too. By the way, without getting into a lecture about polymers (although we can discuss different techniques to dissolve them more efficiently during socializing if you’re interested), we are referring to chain lengths.

Rejecting is one of our strongest expressions, and we encourage you to do so because it will show your colleagues that you really care about sustainability. Although it is useful, unfortunately, it can be difficult to do and might scare some people. A little tip: reject indirectly by asking others for an alternative. If they have one, that’s great! If not, they might reject with you.

Rethinking is the most difficult but also the most fun! Have you ever felt the excitement of having invented a completely new approach to your scientific inquiry? It can be more sustainable, faster, and easier to do, and it’s all in your hands. Rethinking can be applied everywhere, from chemicals to energy. At first, it may seem a bit scary, but trust yourself. You will come up with a solution once you have a closer look how to restructure your experiment. Concretely, have little search which organic solvents are better to use or do you really have to split your cell lines one after another? You can do it in parallel not just being faster but using the same pipettes for the same solutions.

Summing it up, the greatest impacts and the most fun are definitely reduce and rethink! Make the first step and you will not stop because you feel the excitement. Reducing avoids many of the limitations of re- or down-cycling and especially helps you in the scarcity of COVID times. Rethinking gives you the opportunity to improve anywhere, anywhen you want and in which way you want.

You already want to know a bit more? Ok, alright, we like that, so here you go:

1) Grab for the low hanging fruit at first: set your freezer from -80 to -70 that will save about 20% of its energy consumption. Do not be afraid, the fear that your samples will degrade right away is totally exaggerated. A couple years ago -70 was pretty common anyway.

2) Turn machines off when you do not need them. If you know, you need the water bath today, why not turning it on in the morning – or at least keeping it off during the weekend. Also, think about your computer and its screen – sleep mode is also an improvement!

3) Needless to say, use smaller tubes and pipette tips of possible. If you have to refill your pipette once again or pipette two times more do not worry, nature says warm thanks. Saving time is also possible: if you do the same steps multiple times (like DNA preps or washing) you have the amazing luxury to have multiple pipetts, do not change the tips but keep them on and change the pipette (“Change the pipette not the tip”).

4) More about waste: have a little thought how you can safe some waste. For example, when you have a multiple samples, add the solution which you need in most of them first. Also, if you are going to use your sample or chemical up, use the same pipette tip you used before – contamination does not matter when you throw the empty tube away or the two chemicals you use end up in the same sample anyway. In the same way maybe you can save tubes by combining two mixtures during preparation before splitting them when adding your sample. You already realize, there is no law-like text you can follow. Rather, it is on you just pondering a bit what you can do.

5) Indeed, if you want to extend your impact, we can even go further. As an example, let us consider SDS-PAGEs. Some people may contradict this approach but to our experiences it does not cause issues but can safe a whole lot of plastics. If you use your chemicals only for SDS-PAGEs then: use the first serological pipette and pipette at first water in your 50 mL tube. Then, you use the same pipette to add the Tris buffer. Then, believe it or not, you use the same pipette and add the SDS. Still, for TEMED and APS use different tips! Realize that you have saved about 2/3 of waste so far. Then, when you have poured your gel, and some liquid gel is left over, pour it in an old box or styro-holder for tubes to let it dry (since it is toxic please do not pour it away). Then, you can use the same 50 mL tube again the next time you make a gel.

For the “maniacs” amongst you, if you prepare resolving and stacking gel the same time, you can first pipette lower % Tris and then keep the same pipette for the higher % Tris. That will save you 5/6 of plastic waste!

We hope you got an impression of what is possible and that open eyes are you best friend! For anything else, our presenters and their initiatives have even more to offer. Also, feel free to contact us whatever fits you best.

At first, it all sounds pretty overwhelming, but every challenge offers a great chance to grow. Our goal is not just to make your research greener but also to provide you with some additional skills – experimental design. Improving not just your ecological footstep but also making your data nicer, cleaner and stronger. We mentioned it already, giving your experiments another thought can be very helpful to see where you can reduce waste but can also help you to improve your research strategy as well. Once you are consciously considering your experiments and adapting them yourself, you

• become more confident in scientific conduct
• discover all the aspects to be considered when planning a new experiment
• and work more precise – a bit meditative even.

You see the same aspects all over because it is all connected: better planning can result in better reproducibility because we optimize our design, therefore, we can e.g. use less animals in our approach, and also use less plastics and energy, plus we safe time. See the opportunity to reduce & rethink and thereby become a conscious researcher discovering your experiments from a new angle. Recognizing the caveats of your experiments will help you to see how much you can optimize everywhere (connecting sustainability and scientific improvement). For example, you can contribute to the larger picture when your paper is addressing questions thoroughly and thereby potentially reducing the number of further publications in other words, your competitors.

Every action we take makes an impact! Every single step we do is progressing towards more sustainable science. We are the first to advance and make our research greener and we will do that together. There are many things you have already learnt, but take it cool – one step after another. Start little and then get the momentum to go on. Finally, we are all here to help you with whatever question you have or to share your story.