First of all, we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our short survey. With the replies (n=23) we have a pilot indication of embryologist perception of environmental awareness and areas we can focus on to make changes.

And if you still wish to submit your responses, it’s not too late!

Please use the link below

Environmental awareness in IVF labs  Survey (surveymonkey.com)

From the bar chart below, it seems that private clinics report having less access to recycling facilities and no recycling policies. Both NHS and private clinics reported not recycling waste, whilst a few responders said they repurpose used, empty media bottles for collecting waste at egg collections. This is a great idea!

Product cost appeared to be a limiting factor in selecting products from more sustainable suppliers, particularly for NHS clinics, and only three responders have asked suppliers if they have a plan to reduce CO2 emissions. There was unanimous agreement that suppliers should reduce packaging, issue electronic certificates of analysis and use more recyclable and biodegradable materials.

We have reached out to our colleagues in Australia who it seems are ahead of the UK in terms of sustainability. Sandra Galea, an embryologist from the Newlife IVF clinic in Melbourne, has previously given presentations on their clinic’s evaluation of single-use plastics and their sustainability efforts. Sandra agreed for us to share the following quotes ad verbum from our emails:

‘I actually believe that most embryologists do want to embrace more sustainable practices, but it seems like a daunting undertaking!

Unfortunately, in Australia there really isn’t a lot of infrastructure or incentive to be ‘green’, for us the initiative came from our CEO and that is half the battle – you must engage with the powers that be. First off we changed all energy consumption to our lab and office space to renewable energy products.’

… general waste was routinely disposed into sharps/ bio bins – these bins are more energy hungry to manufacture and dispose, it was not acceptable to be incinerating a bin half filled with general waste. This is where education and engagement of staff is important, we also removed all but one general waste bin in the lab, and encouraged staff to be mindful of where their waste should go.

We looked at what was available to us on site with waste management… introduced cardboard bins in the lab and office areas to separate waste.

We also looked at our procedures and ways where we could reduce the amount of plasticware. We started to reuse egg collection dishes for a patient and we reduced this dish waste by over 70%. … Our second biggest waste is packaging – so much packaging for our single use items! We try to buy plasticware and other consumables in bulk – we also do this to minimise the number of deliveries we are receiving. Putting in place a robust ordering system is key for this.

In Australia, our soft plastic recycling industry collapsed last year but we have engaged a company that collects soft plastic and extracts its oil to remanufacture soft plastics.

We are continually looking at ways to be more sustainable, other ‘small’ initiatives you could implement easily – change to rechargeable batteries, reduce the monitor brightness of computers to 70%, replace disposable caps with washable caps (our lab would go through at least 3000 disposable caps/year).’

We are grateful to Sandra and her team for sharing their journey and ideas about how to start the change towards a more sustainable IVF lab.

We also recommend watching I3 ‘Green IVF’ session.   This include useful presentations with ideas for repurposing packaging and making small but significant changes in the lab. There is also a recently published article ‘Sustainability in the IVF laboratory: recommendations of an expert panel’ which has a detailed ‘Green IVF’ action plan on how to move towards more sustainable IVF.

Overall, it is clear to see there is still a lot of work to do and we need to keep talking and encouraging more clinics, not just embryologists, to be more aware of our environmental impact and take action whenever we can and however small. Not taking any action could makes us appear irresponsible. Isn’t that contrary to our ideals as embryologists?

REFUSE, REDUCE, REUSE, REPURPOSE, RECYCLE!