But you can represent up to 999 lab techs with only 1 more digit. Or 946 lab techs with just 2 alpha numeric characters. Heck just 2 letters gets you 676 combinations. About 17,000 combos with 3 letters and more than 40,000 if you use 3 alphanumeric characters.
And straws. My plastic straw isn’t the problem.
If your don’t recycle your aluminum and other cans though, you’re a bad person and you should feel bad about it.