Unwanted Travelers: The Afterlife of Chemicals and Plastics

We recycle at home, but what about the mountain of plastic from hospitals and labs? Syringes, test tubes, petri dishes —all single-use, and recyclers take one look and run. Too risky: biohazard? chemical? Nobody wants to find out. We tried the manual route: decontaminating and drying each piece by hand. Spoiler: it’s as tedious as it sounds. So we built a machine to do the dirty work instead. Come hear how we’re giving lab plastics a second life—turning scary waste into tomorrow’s petri dishes.

Chemicals which once had well defined functions such as the medicines that we rely on to maintain our health, or those we inadvertently use in soaps, veterinary medications and gardening products, can retain their once useful function long after we’re done with them. These chemicals can enter the environment where they may have significant effects on wildlife and biodiversity, disrupting hormones and reproduction in aquatic organisms and affecting human health. So, next time you pour something down the sink, wash clothes or flush the toilet, think: where does your water go?