BioEcho Technologies: Sustainability coming with Significant Saving Potential

Sustainability, environmental compatibility and user health have been a focus of BioEcho since the moment of its foundation in 2016; even before the climate protection movement has become stronger and before the need to increasingly take care of sustainability has become so obvious and present in the media as it is today. Therefore, we see BioEcho Life Sciences as the pioneer company to introduce sustainability to modern molecular biology.

Beneficial for the Environment & Beneficial for You!

Reduced environmental burden:

• 70% less plastics consumption = waste
• No ecologically problematic or hazardous reagents
• Plastic-free packaging, less transportation weight, smaller CO2 footprintt

Cost and Space Savings:

• Free up to 80% shelf space in your lab!
• Reduce your costs:
  • 50% less pipette tip consumption
  • 90% less disposable costs for you lab waste

70 % less Plastics – no Harmful Chemicals

The EchoLUTION nucleic acid extraction kits dramatically reduce the number of working steps for the user and, consequently, the amount of accessory consumables. This allows BioEcho to reduce the consumption of laboratory and packaging plastics by 70% compared to traditional Silica bind-wash-elute products (see picture).

Less Waste, Reduced Costs

The market of Genomic Sample Preparation has reached a volume of approximately 3 Bn € in 2019^[1]. Per year, close to 2 Bn kit based DNA and RNA extractions are performed. Based on these numbers, the worldwide amount of lab waste can be calculated to more than 27.000 tons annually^[2]. With traditional products using harmful reagents such as guanidine hydrochloride and organic solvents, such lab waste needs to be entirely disposed of under controlled conditions resulting in disposal costs of ~43.000.000 € worldwide^[3] today.

BioEcho will help to reduce these enormous costs and ecological burden significantly. With a global switch to BioEcho kits, 16.000 tons of plastic lab waste and even 38.000.000 € of costs could be avoided (see figure).

No Organic Solvents, No Toxic and Corrosive Reagents, No Environmentally Problematic Waste

The nucleic acids bind-wash-elute extraction methods applied since 30+ years require the use of highly concentrated denaturing guanidine solutions and organic solvents such as ethanol or even phenol/chloroform. Already from the early onset of their idea of a novel extraction technology, the founders of BioEcho had the intention to put an end to the use of such hazardous chemicals. Therefore, they not only focused on improving detection sensitivity and to time savings but also on strictly applying only reagents that are non-harmful.

Packaged Plastic-Free and Sustainably

Furthermore, our goal is to reduce plastics in packaging of our products wherever possible. Thus, all components of a kit are plastic-free and the kit boxes as well as the outer packaging is of FSC-certified cardboard. BioEcho avoids blister packaging. Instead, reagent and centrifugation tubes are filled in starch-based bags. Only the tubes and plates themselves continue to be plastic-based, usually polypropylene. As soon as available, we aim at replacing these with components produced from compostable or recycled materials.

Our Products Travel Environmentally Friendly to You

And, finally, a word on shipping via parcel service providers: both volume and weight of our kits are 3 to 5-fold lower compared to bind-wash-elute products. So, you will not only free up lots of space in your lab but also help reducing parcel service tours significantly! Your further contribution to an improved pollutant balance and protection of our environment…!