FREEZER CHALLENGE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
Urbana Champaign

"[We] created bin storage for -20, so that researchers can put items in bins for storage. This allows them to take a bin out to search for items versus standing with the freezer door open while looking for items. It also makes it easier to identify items by group or research team." -Lucienne Burrus

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"[We were successful by] disposing old material on a regular basis, scheduling monthly inspections/cleaning of filter covers and coils, more efficient labeling, using stainless storage racks for organizing boxes, [and] combining materials in boxes." -Chance Riggins

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"I had a lot of fun and like these challenges, I hope you are going to keep doing them! Participating in the challenge was very informative and gives me a reason to kick everyone’s samples out once they are done with their research." -Taylor Pederson

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"We started organizing the freezers by more efficiently labeling the samples using electronic label makers, sorting them in to the freezer and making excel sheets such that samples are easy to find by looking at their location in the excel sheet. We have thousands of samples and so this saves a lot of energy by being able to find the sample faster and keep the freezer doors less open. Also, we previously collected the samples in mostly 50ml and to a lower extent 15ml tubes but recently moved to mostly using 5ml tubes so this would take less freezer space. We also cleaned out some of the freezers and threw away empty boxes or samples that are no longer needed and moved the rest of the samples that are not needed for now to a separate freezer for longer storage." -Jennifer Pfister