Now, a similar crisis is affecting scientists in the lab: a shortage of disposable, sterile plastic products, especially pipette tips, Sally Herships and David Gura report for NPR’s The Indicator.

The scale of the problem was not limited to plastic tubes. Macdonald also found that the pipette tips that scientists use to transfer liquids from one tube to another can also spike water with ...

Furthermore, plastic pipette tips – a one-use product that delivers small amounts of liquid for experiments – also leached chemicals that block biological reactions.

Plastic consumables were previously being discarded after a single use, and I saw that there was no way that the industry could sustain itself forever. That’s why Grenova was formed.

Scientists have coopted that design to create a plastic pipette that can pick up and transfer precise amounts of water, researchers report March 14 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

She has long used an work-around for the problem: "I always use glass," she says. However, plastic pipette tips and microplates are a vital part of the set-up in the Alberta laboratories.

This Environmental Health & Safety guideline documentation is intended for researchers and laboratory personnel. This guidance document provides instruction on segregation and disposal of Broken Glass ...