The Makerspace workshop at Queen Mary University’s School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) has been awarded the Sustainable Laboratories Bronze award from the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF).

The team, led by James Wayland - Makerspace technician and lead for student workshop facilities - successfully incorporated sustainable practices within the workshop environment, promoting the 5R's methodology of materials handling to reduce waste - refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose and recycle. The team also source 3D printing filament responsibly - from recycled sources as well as reducing the school’s energy footprint.

On winning the award, James said, "I am extremely excited to be recognised for the efforts the Makerspace is doing to help with our push towards being a sustainable workshop. We are always looking for ways to improve how we operate and to try to encourage good sustainable practice to all of our workshop users.”

The Makerspace is the first workshop facility in Queen Mary to achieve this status, and the second facility in SEMS. The Makerspace team are also working with the university's Sustainability team to adapt the framework so that further workshops can strive towards a LEAF award status and a more sustainable future for the university.

James also has plans to improve sustainability in the Makerspace further; “The next step for the Makerspace is to try and setup in-house plastics recycling and engage with recycling schemes to reduce our waste even further. I would love to involve some industry processes for processing used materials for our students to engage with and use within their projects and potentially produce up-cycled products, so watch this space!"