Circular Materials Management News Archives - Page 2 of 3

Jambeck to co-lead National Geographic’s Ganges expedition

Kat Gilmore on May 10, 2019

University of Georgia College of Engineering researcher Jenna Jambeck will help lead an international, all-female expedition team that will study plastic pollution in one of the world’s most iconic waterways — the Ganges River (known locally as Ganga and Padma).

The “Sea to Source: Ganges” river expedition, in partnership with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the University of Dhaka and WildTeam, is part of National Geographic’s journey to better understand and document how plastic waste travels from source to sea and to fill critical knowledge gaps around plastic flow, load and composition. The expedition will offer an unprecedented and unique opportunity to scientifically document plastic waste in a watershed and develop holistic and inclusive solutions.

“I am so excited to co-lead this expedition along with an amazing international team of incredible researchers in one of the most iconic rivers on the planet,” said Jambeck, a professor of environmental engineering who leads the New Material Institute’s Center for Circular Materials Management. Jambeck is also a National Geographic Fellow. “Working hand-in-hand with local communities, from the Bay of Bengal to the Himalayas, we will explore waste, plastic, its flow through and potential impact on this important ecosystem.”

Two of Jambeck’s graduate students are also members of the research team.

Walmart Foundation grant aimed at reducing plastic waste

Kat Gilmore on March 14, 2019

An $800,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to the University of Georgia New Materials Institute will help researchers understand how multilayer plastic packaging biodegrades and also help manufacturers in their attempts to design and select more sustainable materials. The research funded by the grant will seek to yield both upstream and downstream solutions aimed at reducing the buildup of plastic packaging in the environment.

“The grant will help us examine how the selection of materials for flexible packaging influences the biodegradability of that plastic in different environments, and also how the unique microbes that exist in these environments influence the biodegradation process,” said Jason Locklin, director of the New Materials Institute and a principal investigator on the grant. “Our data will be used to propose new and logical standards to help find ways to manage packaging waste that is presently being thrown away or blown away.”

Multilayer packaging protects nearly half of the food produced from spoiling before it can be eaten. This complex packaging is also extremely difficult material to recover and recycle, said Locklin. Currently, when two or more types of plastic are bound together to create this flexible packaging, the composite film either does not biodegrade or it biodegrades at a rate too slow to meet certification requirements that allow the manufacturer to claim its film will biodegrade; these requirements vary by country.

There are numerous microbial environments in which plastic packaging—when comprised of the right materials—could fully biodegrade, including landfills, municipal waste water treatment plants and industrial composting facilities. The research team will examine packaging biodegradability in all of these settings and propose new testing standards that governments and certification laboratories can adopt so that all flexible plastic packaging is subjected to rigorous, standard testing protocols.

The team will also conduct a nationwide assessment of existing waste management infrastructure to determine the most advantageous means of managing waste, including the proximity of composting, recycling and other waste processing facilities to the communities they serve. As part of this assessment, the team will also consider whether additional infrastructure may be needed as new types of materials produced to replace conventional plastics begin to make their way into these waste and recycling streams.

The other principal investigators on the project are Jenna Jambeck, who leads the institute’s Center for Circular Materials Management, and Evan White, an assistant research scientist. Jambeck is an associate professor in the College of Engineering. Locklin is a professor of chemistry and biochemical engineering who is jointly appointed to the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of chemistryand the College of Engineering.

“Tackling our plastics problem is going to require new approaches to the entire cycle of production, consumer use and disposal,” said David Lee, vice president for research at UGA. “We’re grateful to the Walmart Foundation for its support of research that aims to create benefits both for the environment and for the communities it serves.”

The UGA New Materials Institute is committed to preventing waste through the design of materials and systems that adhere to Green Engineering principles. The institute partners with industry and businesses to design materials for their use that are bio-based, fully biodegradable, or completely recyclable, and safe for people, animals and our planet. In addition, it works with businesses, governments, foundations and other organizations to redesign systems so that they generate less waste and promote circularity in materials management. The New Materials Institute is also shaping the future by training the next generation of scientists and engineers on the importance of considering Green Engineering design principles in everything they do. For more information, visit www.newmaterials.uga.edu.

Royal statistic of 2018: 90.5% of plastic not recycled

Kat Gilmore on December 20, 2018

A finding from University of Georgia research has been named the 2018 International Statistic of the Year by the Royal Statistical Society. CNN International interviewed the College of Engineering’s Jenna Jambeck, who worked with colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Sea Education Association on the groundbreaking research.

More than 90 percent of plastic has never been recycled, according to the research. Prior to the research, it was unclear exactly how much plastic was ending up in landfills or, even more problematic, in oceans and forests around the world. The new statistic lends a sense of scale to the problem of global plastic pollution.

“This statistic illustrates that many of the characteristics of plastic that make it so useful — it’s light-weight, can be any color and shape with additives — also can reduce its value at its end of life and make it difficult to manage in the waste stream,” Jambeck said. “It often ends up unrecycled or mismanaged and ends up in our ocean. Besides reduction where appropriate, we need to design products and materials proactively to work within our waste and materials management systems.”

Jambeck’s previous work includes a 2015 study that was the first to estimate how much of the plastic waste produced on land made its way into the world’s waterways. Her follow-up two years later determined the amount of plastic produced worldwide since large-scale production of the synthetic materials began in the early 1950s.

Her research in 2018 also illustrated that half of the plastic meant for recycling from around the globe was being exported to China, until China ended this practice—creating even more challenges for the global recycling industry.

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A video is online at https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2018/12/19/exp-statistic-of-the-year-on-plastic-waste.cnn

For more information about Jenna Jambeck and her work, visit https://greatcommitments.uga.edu/story/turning-trash-into-treasure/

Recycling in U.S. is becoming more expensive, due to China and ‘dirty’ recycling

Kat Gilmore on August 14, 2018

The global waste management market is shifting and the change is beginning to negatively impact the recycling industry in the United States. In Maine, a town in Hancock County plans to stop curbside recycling on Sept. 1, following a steep rise in the costs associated with the program. While some of the rising costs are associated with China’s ban on 24 waste items from the U.S. and other countries, some costs are due to so-called “dirty” recycling practices by consumers: items in the recycling stream that either cannot be recycled or are too expensive to clean and resell for profit.

Amy Brooks, a doctoral student in the New Materials Institute who co-authored a recent study on China’s ban of plastic imports, says that waste managers will have to seek new markets and solutions that can help mitigate the rising costs of recycling.

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NMI’s Jambeck talks to NPR

Kat Gilmore on July 24, 2018

Jenna Jambeck is co-director of the UGA New Materials Institute and an associate professor of environmental engineering.

Jenna Jambeck talked to NPR about her quest to help people comprehend the world’s plastic problem and to inspire solutions. Jambeck is co-director of the New Materials Institute and an associate professor of environmental engineering in the UGA College of Engineering.

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NMI research team calculates impact of China’s ban on plastic waste imports

Kat Gilmore on June 27, 2018

Beach pollution. Plastic bottles and other trash on sea beach

Athens, Ga. – While recycling is often touted as the solution to the large-scale production of plastic waste, upwards of half of the plastic waste intended for recycling is exported from higher income countries to other nations, with China historically taking the largest share.

But in 2017, China passed the “National Sword” policy, which permanently bans the import of non-industrial plastic waste as of January 2018. Now, scientists from the University of Georgia have calculated the potential global impact of this legislation and how it might affect efforts to reduce the amount of plastic waste entering the world’s landfills and natural environment.

Their study was published in the journal Science Advances.

“We know from our previous studies that only 9 percent of all plastic ever produced has been recycled, and the majority of it ends up in landfills or the natural environment,” said Jenna Jambeck, associate professor in UGA’s College of engineering and co-author of the study. “About 111 million metric tons of plastic waste is going to be displaced because of the import ban through 2030, so we’re going to have to develop more robust recycling programs domestically and rethink the use and design of plastic products if we want to deal with this waste responsibly.”

Global annual imports and exports of plastic waste skyrocketed in 1993, growing by about 800 percent through 2016.

Since reporting began in 1992, China has accepted about 106 million metric tons of plastic waste, which accounts for nearly half of the world’s plastic waste imports. China and Hong Kong have imported more than 72 percent of all plastic waste, but most of the waste that enters Hong Kong—about 63 percent—is exported to China.

High income countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas account for more than 85 percent of all global plastic waste exports. Taken collectively, the European Union is the top exporter.

“Plastic waste was once a fairly profitable business for China, because they could use or resell the recycled plastic waste,” said Amy Brooks, a doctoral student in UGA’s College of Engineering and lead author of the paper. “But a lot of the plastic China received in recent years was poor quality, and it became difficult to turn a profit. China is also producing more plastic waste domestically, so it doesn’t have to rely on other nations for waste.”

For exporters, cheap processing fees in China meant that shipping waste overseas was less expensive than transporting the materials domestically via truck or rail, said Brooks.

“It’s hard to predict what will happen to the plastic waste that was once destined for Chinese processing facilities,” said Jambeck. “Some of it could be diverted to other countries, but most of them lack the infrastructure to manage their own waste let alone the waste produced by the rest of the world.”

The import of plastic waste to China contributed an additional 10 to 13 percent of plastic waste on top of what they were already having a difficult time managing because of rapid economic growth before the import ban took effect, Jambeck said.

“Without bold new ideas and system-wide changes, even the relatively low current recycling rates will no longer be met, and our previously recycled materials could now end up in landfills,” Jambeck said.

Writer: James Hataway

A Growing Awareness about the Need for Sustainable Packaging

Kat Gilmore on April 4, 2018

The New Materials Institute’s Jenna Jambeck recently talked to Progressive Grocer about the affect local and national governmental policies are having on industry’s attitudes regarding plastic packaging.

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Jenna Jambeck is redesigning waste management

Kat Gilmore on March 20, 2018

Right before Jenna Jambeck was returning to school to get her doctorate in environmental engineering in 2000, racing captain and oceanographer Charles Moore showed the industrialized world that its obsession with plastic had a cost.

Jambeck was disgusted.

Moore’s articles on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch described a swath of free-floating marine debris, much of it plastic, that is now twice the size of Texas. The discovery was horrifying evidence of the consequences of man’s fascination with disposable, prepackaged goods. But perhaps more horrifying was that the microplastic-filled soup of trash wasn’t the only one; it was just the first to be discovered.

“I felt like we were doing something wrong on land if our trash is ending up in the ocean,” says Jambeck, now an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Georgia. But a senior advisor at the time told her no one really cared that garbage was making its way from land into the world’s waterways. “Waste management in general, people haven’t really cared about that either.” But to Jambeck, that was unacceptable.

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New materials, new perspectives

Kat Gilmore on February 8, 2018

Plastic waste — Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA

UGA New Materials Institute teams are working with industry partners to improve the efficiency and applications of biobased, degradable plastic alternatives and to prove their safety in land and aquatic environments. The institute was also recently awarded the first phase of a grant from the National Science Foundation that will enable the NMI to join the Center for Bioplastics and Biocomposites (CB2). Based at Iowa State University, CB2 currently works to develop biobased products from agricultural resources. The collaboration with NMI will allow the expansion into the area of sustainable packaging and help connect the NMI to industry partners like Ford, 3M, ADM, Hyundai, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as other university-based research institutes and colleges.

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Panel: Plastic kills marine life, is ubiquitous and has health implications for all

Kat Gilmore on December 6, 2017

Since 1950, when 1.7 million metric tons of plastic was first produced worldwide, we’ve managed to pollute the entire planet with it: the oceans, fresh water systems, every continent, even the air. While you may envision plastic water bottles and bags floating in an ocean, even the stuff you can’t see could be killing marine life — and scientists are working to understand the health implications of microplastics on people, animals and Earth.

That was the message scientists shared during a panel discussion titled “Plastic: Land to Sea Connections,” held in November. Whether it comes as microscopic fibers emitted by your washer and dryer, or as larger items of trash, plastic hitches a ride, traveling through storm systems, streams, rivers and ultimately into estuaries and oceans, the panelists said.

“We, as a species, have an addiction to plastic,” said Branson W. Ritchie, a Distinguished Research Professor and Director of Technology Development and Implementation in the UGA New Materials Institute. “That plastic doesn’t biodegrade; it just breaks down. It doesn’t stop until it gets to some irreducible size, but we don’t know yet what that size is. As it gets smaller, it gets more and more dangerous to animals. A plastic water bottle, plate or fork breaks down to hundreds of millions of even smaller pieces and will kill some animal that eats it, but the plastic is still there to be eaten and kill again.”

Plastic may take decades or hundreds of years to degrade, but it persists as fragmented pieces that can become airborne and escape water filtration systems, the panelists said. Ritchie emphasized that plastic waste is killing whales, dolphins, birds and sea turtles in horrible ways, including choking, suffocation, gastrointestinal impactions, starvation and secondary systemic infections (called septicemia).

“Oceans are the ultimate transporter of plastic,” said Jenna Jambeck, an associate professor of waste management in the College of Engineering who has focused on plastics since about 2001. Jambeck directs the Center for Circular Materials Management (C2M2) under NMI. She also co-developed the Marine Debris Tracker app, used globally to report the location and type of debris found. Of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic produced in 2017, less than 10 percent was recycled; some 8 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean annually, she said.

Jambeck emphasized that it will take multiple solutions to rid the planet of its plastics problem. In some countries, bottled water is the only source for clean drinking water, and, many localities have no waste management system. Through the NMI’s C2M2 and utilizing Green Engineering principles, Jambeck works with organizations, governments and businesses around the world to promote collecting and containing plastic, preventing and redesigning waste systems, and converting existing plastic into other products before it becomes waste.

But greater awareness about the problem and a collective goal to be less reliant on plastic are key catalysts for global change, noted the panelists.

Panelist Katy Smith, the water quality program coordinator with UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, teaches school children, college students and adults about the hazards of things they may view as benign — like balloons, straws and cigarette butts. “Marine debris is everyone’s problem. We can all take part in the solutions,” Smith said.

Maia McGuire, an extension agent with the University of Florida IFAS Extension and Florida Sea Grant, launched the Florida Microplastic Awareness Project in 2015. Volunteers collect and analyze coastal water samples from around the state, and teach others how to reduce their plastic dependence. Program participants are encouraged to take a pledge (http://bit.ly/plasticpledge) aimed at reducing the amount of plastic waste they generate. She follows up with program participants to find out what changes they have made and is already encouraged by her findings. “The more people learn, the more likely they are to make a change,” McGuire said.

The event was organized by Rebecca Atkins, a PhD student in the Odum School of Ecology, and sponsored by the UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, University of Florida IFAS Extension and Florida Sea Grant, the UGA New Materials Institute, and the River Basin Center.

Story by Kat Yancey Gilmore, Senior Science Writer and Editor for the New Materials Institute

Category: Circular Materials Management News