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UCL wins S-Labs award

20 June 2013

UCL has won an S-Labs award for the use of the WARPit reuse portal to redistribute unwanted lab resources throughout the university.

Paul Monks

On 19 June, UCL collected the award at the annual S-Labs Conference Awards ceremony in Liverpool. This was followed by a presentation about how WARPit is used at UCL by Paul Monk, UCL Estates.

Congratulations to everyone who has helped make WARP-it a success over the last year, with a special mention to UCL colleagues Simon Barrass, Ellie Doney and Kate Thornton who kindly agreed to be interviewed for the presentation.

In the last 11 months WARPit has helped divert 1.5 tonnes of waste, saved 8 tonnes of CO2 and saved the college £29,000. Well over half of the items reused were lab items ranging from lab coats, flasks and measuring cylinders to -80oC freezers, centrifuges and incubators.

If you want to know more about WARPit, details about the system and how to sign up please go to UCL Estates website

What is S-Labs?

The S-Lab programme aims to create more sustainable laboratories, and to raise sustainability awareness amongst lab-using staff and students. It was initially financed by the four UK higher education funding bodies (HEFCE, HEFCW, SFC and DELNI) but is now self-sustaining. It has three streams of work:

  • Laboratory design (working in partnership with owners and suppliers, and in collaboration with the US Labs 21 initiative);
  • Laboratory operation (working closely with lab managers and technicians);
  • Laboratory users (working closely with staff and students). 

More information can be found at their website, S-Labs.