Sustainability Champions: Sam Chan at the University of Pittsburgh
We sat down with Sam Chan, Assistant Director of Sustainability at the University of Pittsburgh, to learn how her team launched ambitious new lab plastic recycling across their 2,000 labs. With first-hand insights and advice, Sam shares how to start, scale, and sustain an initiative that can make a real impact in your labs.
Polycarbin: Hi Sam! Before we jump into the questions, can you tell us a little bit about you and your role?
Sam Chan: I’m Sam, and I work with Pitt’s University-wide Sustainability team. In my role, I help advance the University of Pittsburgh toward achieving all 68 sustainability goals, including achieving carbon neutrality by 2037. Day-to-day, I lead sustainability reporting, strategic planning, and employee education programs. I also help create innovative ways to cut waste and energy use in our labs.
At the University of Pittsburgh, we work to build engagement and leverage sustainable behavior change to grow a community culture of sustainability.
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Polycarbin: Can you tell us about your team and how you started thinking about sustainability?
Sam Chan: Fortunately, sustainability is embedded in our institutional values and is a core part of our culture. As I mentioned, the University has 68 sustainability goals we are constantly working towards achieving.
We have the Office of Sustainability, where three of us work full-time, but our full embedded team of 20+ people is in different departments across campus. These team members work in their units as sustainability experts, working to embed sustainability into everyday workflows collectively weaving together university-wide sustainability practices. This structure gives us representation in departments including purchasing, facilities, and housing, which, as you can imagine, is exceptionally valuable.
In all, we collaborate as a giant team, and everybody is highly passionate about sustainability.
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Polycarbin: What advice would you give to a lab starting from scratch with sustainability?
Sam Chan: You don’t need to start from scratch. Plenty of great resources already exist. For example, AASHE and My Green Lab’s portals were game changers when we began thinking about sustainability in labs. Groups like I2SL have resources and communities where you can learn directly from others who’ve been in your shoes. They even have a group for higher education institutions that meets periodically to share ideas and build innovation within our community.
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Polycarbin: What’s something you learned along the way or stands out as a big takeaway?
Sam Chan: My big takeaway is anytime you're launching something new, you need to have a communications plan in place. You need to communicate consistently with stakeholders to build buy-in prior to launch. Don’t just set boxes out one night and hope for the best; clear communication is the key to engagement and success.
First, we started by letting building managers know new plastic recycling options were coming so they could prepare and share updates with their teams. We partnered closely with facilities management, logistics, and custodial staff, especially since they’d all play a vital role in collecting and moving pipette tip boxes from building docks. Their feedback helped us refine the process and identify potential challenges early on.
We also worked with the University’s Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) team to ensure the initiative aligned with laboratory safety protocols. Altogether, we held 10+ stakeholder meetings involving everyone from researchers to custodial teams to make sure no detail was overlooked.
We also created a training video for custodial staff and a webpage for users who would have questions. This step was invaluable. The video and website provided clear instructions, reduced confusion, and helped everyone feel confident about their role in the effort.
We also made sure our signs and communications were aligned with the University's brand and approved prior to posting. Then, once everything was in place, we rolled out this new offering campus-wide.
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Polycarbin: It sounds like getting everything in place took a lot of thought and teamwork!
Sam Chan: Yes. There's a lot of gearing up to launch a new offering like this one. It took us about six or seven months to get everything up and running, including negotiating contracts, getting buy-in from all key players, and creating communication plans for each stakeholder group. For instance, you need to think about what a researcher would want to know versus a custodian staffer or someone in EHS so you have the information they need when they need it.
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Polycarbin: So, how did your program launch go?
Sam Chan: We’re thrilled with the results—it only took four or five weeks for the program to take off, proof that with the right plan and teamwork, labs everywhere can make meaningful changes. If you’re reading and considering a new offering like this, go for it! The passion is there with your stakeholders, you just need to channel it into action.
Researchers care. They want to make the world a better place. Whether advancing science or medicine, they know how much material is going through their labs to do that work. As a result, they're eager to make it better to make the world better. They want more opportunities to divert materials from landfills and are passionate about advocating for change.
Pitt’s pipette tip box recycling is a true success story. Seeing how quickly people embraced the new offering has been incredibly rewarding and clearly demonstrates that our communities are eager to make a difference -- and will spring into action when you offer impactful solutions and engage people in a way that respects their knowledge and reflects their values.
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Join Us in Building the World’s First True Circular Economy
At Polycarbin, we believe that single-use waste does not have to be the cost of innovation. By reducing waste, cutting emissions, and empowering scientists to take action, we are building a new standard for sustainable innovation—empowering scientists to create true circularity.
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