Veolia has partnered with MassBio and GreenLabs Recycling to support an innovative regionally-focused solution for recycling container lab plastics used in facilities that manage medical waste.
Under an agreement recently completed with GreenLabs and Veolia, the recycling solution for lab plastics is now being put in place, using the medical waste processing center that Veolia operates in Middleton, Massachusetts to aggregate the plastic for GreenLabs. This reduces the need to dispose of lab plastics in landfills, and also helps address the growing challenge around properly managing plastic waste, which has been intensifying in recent years due to restrictive global market conditions.
The plastics recycling idea in Massachusetts was conceived by GreenLabs, a startup innovator based in Concord, about 20 miles outside Boston. GreenLabs’ solution works by creating a hyperlocal recycling and manufacturing ecosystem for lab plastic consumables. GreenLabs recycles pipette tip boxes into a lab product they manufacture outside of Boston called a tips transfer bin. Scientists in the lab use these bins so they can see what their plastic is being turned into every time they deposit their used tips into these benchtop bins made from 100 percent recycled plastic.
The lab plastics designated for GreenLabs recycling are shipped from the location of the waste generator to the Veolia Middleton facility, where the plastics are consolidated to ship to GreenLabs’ recycling facility in Concord. The lab plastics are separated, granulated, and prepared for the 100-percent recycled plastic molding process. The granulated plastic material is then transformed into the transfer bins using their molds at a nearby plastic molding facility, keeping the circular economy solution hyperlocal and within a 50-mile radius of one of the world’s largest life science hubs.
Published March 2025
