Reducing waste in animal houses

UCL Psychology and Language Sciences saves 750 single-use gowns annually through implementing sustainability initiatives.

Psychology and Language Sciences (PALS) at UCL have long been overachievers in terms of sustainability. They have achieved an Excellence award at UCL’s Sustainability awards or four years running, and have been recognised as the greenest department for five years.

Improve sustainability

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Animal facilities are notoriously energy intensive, and require lots of single use items such as gowns to protect animals from pathogens that humans may carry.

Single-use items have come under great scrutiny recently as science comes to terms with its impact on the environment, and as such the team decided to try and reduce the use of disposable gowns.

Joanna Holeniewska, who manages the unit, engaged with users on how to reduce single-use gowns. They agreed to introduce fabric gowns for regular users, and only to keep single-use gowns for visitors.

Looking ahead, the department will continue to seek and implement opportunities to reduce and reuse wherever possible. We hope this case study will inspire other facilities to consider how their staff are gowned.

Please contact UCL's Sustainability Labs Advisor Martin Farley to make sustainability improvements to your lab.

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