Currently, the UGA Green Labs program does not engage in any nitrile glove recycling programs. These programs require researchers to pay to ship their used gloves states away, thus increasing their carbon footprint, and are often “downcycled”.
An MIT cradle-to-grave study on end-of-life scenarios for nitrile gloves demonstrated that unless nitrile gloves are being incinerated at Waste to Energy plants, they actually have a lower Global Warming Potential when landfilled. Thus, our program does not currently support efforts for nitrile glove recycling on campus. We are always eager to divert waste from our campus laboratory waste streams and will continue to monitor and review these programs.
For questions about nitrile gloves recycling, please contact the UGA Green Labs program at [email protected].
