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Comment by hliyan | Hacker News Reader

Was this a glass test tube? I understand why glass is probably the best material for the inner lining of containers that hold biological material, but I'm surprised that there aren't better solutions for hazardous material (e.g. an unbreakable, transparent polymer outer coating).

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I believe the biggest reason to use glass is that it doesn't react with much stuff, but I've yet to see an explanation for why your idea wouldn't work. I imagine there could be problems with autoclaves (i.e. degradation of the polymer) and fear of chemical leaching.

Polymer coated glass is commonplace in chemistry labs for large containers of hazardous reagents held in storage. There's no chemical leaching concern because it's on the outside.

If anything, disposable plastic test tubes are the norm in microbiology labs at this point. No need to autoclave because they come sterile and you throw them away after a single use.

Plenty of plastic that's designed for it goes through the autoclave. For example micropipette tips. Nearly all of it is disposable single use so it only has to withstand a single cycle.

Not sure that throwing away plastic tubes with samples of plague bacteria is a good idea

Disposing of and throwing away are two different things. Throwing away is a subclass of 'disposing of' and there are many other such subclasses including safe destruction, for instance by incineration.

That’s what the autoclave is for.

I'm pretty sure that it goes into a biohazard container that is then sterilized and probably incinerated.

There is regular soda-lime glass and there is borosilicate glass.

My guess would be cost. Glass is cheaper and with sanctions and the economic strain of war I'm sure everyone in Russia is trying to cut corners

Or a double wall - one glass one polymer

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