Lab Spring Clean Event
Green Labs Spring Clean Competition
Participants will compete to clean their labs top to bottom by cleaning out freezers, organizing storage spaces, and taking inventory of lab supplies! We have a ton of resources and answers to questions below to help labs in this endeavour!
Each participating lab will provide before and after pictures of their cleanup by midnight APRIL 30 to [email protected]. Prizes will be given for the biggest before and after difference, and for the "weirdest thing found".
After the competition ends, Green Labs is inviting all participating labs to have a sustainable lunch on us!
All participants will receive stickers, laminated Freezer Maintenance Checklist, and 5 Easy Steps to Make Your Freezer Last magnets.
Check out the resources below, including our inventory sheets, chore maintenance schedule guides and chore checklists, recycling guides, and more! Want to exchange or divest some chemicals, lab ware, equipment or other lab items? Use our new Green Labs Marketplace today!
- RSVP your lab here or using the link below.
- Clean your lab! Please feel free to use the resources we've compiled below.
- Take before and after pictures during your lab clean up.
- Note any "weird things found" and take pictures (if appropriate).
- Submit your pictures to [email protected] (or using the link below).
- Come celebrate with us in May once the competition is over!
- (YES, it's that easy!)
Before and After Submissions 2026
Prober Lab defrosted 3 freezers (and made a snowman!), divested unneeded samples, and organized their storage spaces! They even found some unexpected (but useful!) items such as pipette tips, as well as other items such as this year's weirdest thing found – a Fondant Gum Paste Mold?! They don't know what it is for, but propose using it as a mold for agar!
Keep up the good work Prober Lab! Well done, and best of luck making a gel using your fondant mold!
The Beacon Center organized their archive of cloning intermediates in PCR plates more chronologically, disposed of unnecessary materials, and fully utilized the capacity of our racks for plates. This allowed them to consolidate and make available 1.5 racks that were previously not well organized or utilized. They also collapsed the excess intermediate samples from a recent vector building project from 4 boxes down to just one, discarding unneeded samples and making the current correct materials more clear. They now no longer have plates overflowing as soon as we open the -20C, and they can more easily find what they need.
In their 4C space, they disposed of old supernatant and flow through samples from previous protein expression experiments and cleaned the 24-DWP plates for reuse. This section of the fridge now contains protein samples that are relevant to ongoing experiments and are organized by project so they can more easily navigate to the samples they need. They disposed of old bacterial agar plates that were moldy or no longer useable. They removed the condensation from plates and consolidated them by project into larger bags, overall reducing the number of plates, systematically organizing them and hopefully preventing mold from growing. The condensation underneath the magnetic doors of their fridge was causing mold to grow so we cleaned it up and dried them as well.
On top of their larger cleaning efforts, they refilled their tip boxes, prepared them for autoclaving, and recycled the wafers using the Polycarbin bins. Any broken or damaged tip boxes were placed into Caltech's tip box recycling stream.
Vijaya Kumar of the Millard and Muriel Jacobs Genetics and Genomics Laboratory defrosted freezers, organized lab spaces, and divested samples!
Lester lab cleaned out multiple spaces and rehomed over $96,000 worth of supplies during an open house event!
Lester Lab rehomed over $96,700 worth of supplies during an open house event!
Purnima Deshpande and other team members partnered with Green Labs to set up and catalogue over 2,500 items in the hallway outside of their space. The open house ran for about 4h, and we were visited by over 100 people (representing about 55 labs) who came to rehome more than1,900 items.re than 1300 items.
Furthermore, as part of the clean up we also recycled over 8 kg of lab plastic, 4 kg of paper, and a 40 gallon bin full of Styrofoam, too.
Parker lab deep cleaned their lab (check out their sink!!), benchtops, and defrosted and organized their freezers. They also organized a new lab storage area, built shelving, and made sure their sustainable purchasing practices were on point!
Cleaned spaces and organized benchtops! From that, they worked to rehome over $6,000 worth of supplies at the Lab ReStore!
Before and After Submissions 2025
The Caltech Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Facility (Caltech FCCSF) was founded in 1983 by Rochelle (Shelley) Diamond and Pat Koen in Kerckhoff B132. In the last 40+ years, many, many cell sorting experiments have been completed in that space. Due to the sensitive nature of cell sorting instrumentation, heavy cleaning was never done in the space, and much unused lab supplies and equipment accumulated.
This year, we used the Green Labs Spring Clean Event as an impetus to thoroughly clean the space, organize better storage, and open up more work surfaces. We are hoping this will lead to a more sterile and healthier environment for our staff and experiments!
Karthikeyan Lab inherited the (previously) Hoffman space, and began cleaning it up / properly disposing of hazardous waste / making an inventory of usable supplies / recycling instruments by finding them a new home. They also moved their own lab in, and had to do a complete reorganization / inventory for this move!
Kornfield Lab organized their bench spaces!
Nolan Lab organized their spaces!
Protein Expression Center deep-cleaned their incubator!
Prober Lab Freezer Defrosts! Got rid of HUNDREDS of old DNA samples, boxes, and tubes!
Before and After Submissions 2024
Check out the Beacon Instrument Lab's journey:
The Bjorkman lab also offered to donate old, unused equipment and supplies to other labs during their clean up! Very innovative, Bjorkman lab!
Millard and Mabel Jacobs Genetics and Genomics Laboratory ran an effort to clean both desk and bench spaces, and collaborated with neighbouring labs and donation groups to divest some unused supplies! Well done!
The Gradinaru lab worked to clean and organize freezers and fridges throughout their lab. Their lab worked extremely hard to made their freezers and fridges organized and they divested many old and expired reagents, along with going through old lab members' freezer boxes and organizing them. They have asked us not to post their pictures, but their progress is substantial!
