Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees, 7000 gallons of water, 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, enough energy to power a house for 6 months.
October 30, 2025
For the second year, we participated in the International Freezer Challenge as an institution. The Freezer Challenge is a free competition to promote cold storage best practices, improve lab energy efficiency, and increase equipment life. Of the 113 academic institutions that participated, we placed 20th overall, with a total of 289 points and 91 kWh/day saved, equivalent to 0.042 metric tons CO2 equivalent per day, or 108 miles driven daily by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.
9 labs participated in the competition this year. The top three scorers are:
- Guo Lab (Lab Lead: Yuelin Tang) with 17 points (place 37 out of 273 participating small labs, 10 or fewer lab members)
- Siolas Lab (Lab Lead: Katherine Bacchi) with 15 points (place 53 out of 273 participating small labs, 10 or fewer lab members)
- Jones Lab (Lab Lead: Noemi Linden) with 13 points (place 61 out of 143 participating medium labs, 11-25 lab members)
Yuelin Tang wins a cooler bag and a picnic blanket, and the Guo lab wins reusable mugs and a glove recycling box, sponsored by VWR, and a set of cryogenic vial grippers sponsored by Corning.
A big thank you to Avantor/VWR and Corning for sponsoring the gifts for the winning lab.