[histonet] Cleaning and re-using slides

[Nicholas Evans]

Thanks very much everyone for the responses!!! Pretty much everyone thinks
this is a ridiculous idea (to put it politely). Plus I found out that we may
be overpaying for our slides - we buy Superfrost from Fisher at $350/10
gross, whereas Gorilla Scientific are selling the same type of slide for
about a third of this cost (trial pending).

It's still not totally clear to me whether used slides (we are an academic
lab working on transgenic mice, not a clinical lab) can be sent for glass
recycling, but they probably end up in landfill/incinerators (they most
likely are classed as contaminated sharps waste).

Best wishes
Nick





2009/11/30 Nicholas Evans <nde789 <@t> googlemail.com>

> Dear all,
>
> In our lab our boss is adamant that we must clean and recycle old
> unmounted microscope slides (which have paraffin and cryo sections on them).
> It is driving us nuts, as the process of cleaning the slides is incredibly
> tedious and labor-intensive - it is vital that the slides are spotlessly
> clean before re-treating. We (when I say we, i mean the student lackies who
> get drafted in the lab, not me, hoho) currently physically scrub them with
> various solvents, such as citrisolve, acetone etc. we use Fisherbrand
> Superfrost/plus slides.
>
> Anyone got any ideas how to speed this up/automate – is there a machine
> available? And would anyone care to vote on the lunacy or soundness of
> this idea? (Please post to me, not the list.) We are not a clinical lab,
> by the way.
>
> Nick
>