At the UGA New Materials Institute, we believe that a material’s useful end-of-life should be considered at the design stage and that Green Engineering principles should be part of this process.
This webinar reviewed the strategic goals of a recently established Industry/University Cooperative Research Center supported by the National Science Foundation.Dr. Jason Locklin, director of the UGA New Materials Institute, was one of the presenters.
The content of this webinar will be beneficial to representatives from laboratories, research institutions, students interested in Research and Development trends, government officials who support programs in this area, and any company or organization exploring the economic possibilities and current technical restraints of bio-based plastics.
Athens, Ga. – Plastic: Land to Sea Connections, a workshop on the problem of plastic waste in our oceans and what we can do about it, will take place at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017 in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology auditorium. The event will include a panel discussion featuring experts from UGA and the University of Florida followed by a poster session and reception. It is sponsored by UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, UGA River Basin Center, UGA department of marine sciences, UGA New Materials Institute and University of Florida Sea Grant. The event is free and open to all.
“Marine debris is a critical issue that is dramatically impacting our oceans and the organisms that inhabit them,” said Mark Risse, director of UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant. “Solutions to this issue will involve all changing the way we do things in the upland watersheds. The panelists we have assembled are working on the front lines to do the research, outreach, and education necessary to develop solutions that will work and we are excited to share them with communities that are interested.”
Panelists include Maia McGuire, Sea Grant extension agent at the University of Florida, who will discuss research and outreach efforts focused on microplastics; Jenna Jambeck, associate professor in the College of Engineering, who will talk about her Marine Debris Tracker mobile app that allows the public to report the location of litter and marine debris anywhere in the world; Branson Ritchie, research professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and New Materials Institute, who will discuss the impacts of plastics on marine animals; and Katy Smith, water quality program coordinator for UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, who will cover effective outreach and education about plastic waste and marine debris.
The event was organized by Rebecca Atkins, a doctoral student studying marine and coastal ecology, in partnership with UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant as part of a community engagement course offered through the UGA Office of Service-Learning.
“Planning this workshop has been an exciting opportunity to bring together some of the brilliant minds and organizations dedicated to tackling the huge problem that plastic debris poses in our waterways,” said Atkins.
The poster session and reception will take place in the ecology lobby from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and will feature posters by individuals and organizations including the UGA Office of Sustainability, Watershed UGA, UGA EcoReach, UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, the Upper Oconee Watershed Network and the Atlamaha Riverkeeper. Anyone interested in contributing a poster should contact Rebecca Atkins at atkinsr@uga.edu by Nov. 10.
UGA Researcher Jenna Jambeck says that we need to know how much worldwide plastic waste there is before we can create a plan to tackle the problem. This is exactly what Jamback and her colleagues have done in there recent article in journal Science Advances.
ABSTRACT:
Plastics have outgrown most man-made materials and have long been under environmental scrutiny. However, robust global information, particularly about their end-of-life fate, is lacking. By identifying and synthesizing dispersed data on production, use, and end-of-life management of polymer resins, synthetic fibers, and additives, we present the first global analysis of all mass-produced plastics ever manufactured. We estimate that 8300 million metric tons (Mt) as of virgin plastics have been produced to date. As of 2015, approximately 6300 Mt of plastic waste had been generated, around 9% of which had been recycled, 12% was incinerated, and 79% was accumulated in landfills or the natural environment. If current production and waste management trends continue, roughly 12,000 Mt of plastic waste will be in landfills or in the natural environment by 2050.
Two years ago, socially conscious entrepreneurs Rob Ianelli and Ryan Schoenike founded their company, Norton Point, to manufacture sunglasses made from the huge amounts of plastic cleaned up from ocean coastlines Their goal was to be a part of the solution to one of the planet’s greatest challenges: the 8 million tons of plastic entering Earth’s oceans each year.
Jenna Jambeck and Jason Locklin of UGA’s New Materials Institute help companies develop sustainable materials and practices based on green engineering principles (Credit: Amy Ware).
Moreover, they wanted to reinvest their profits in research, education and development efforts that help reduce the impact of ocean plastic. Now, engineers and polymer scientists with the University of Georgia’s New Materials Institute are helping Norton Point, which is based in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, with testing of its “ocean plastics” products and finding new product applications.
“Packaging represents about half of all plastics produced, and single-use plastic items make up the majority of what is found on beaches,” said Jenna Jambeck, associate professor of engineering and director of Center for Circular Materials Management in the New Materials Institute. Her study of ocean plastics, published in the journal Science in 2015, quantified for the first time the amount of plastics flowing into the earth’s oceans, drawing worldwide attention to the issue.
Jambeck’s study was published at an opportune time for the Norton Point founders, who had been exploring the idea of manufacturing sunglasses from ocean plastics. “But we were concerned about doing it right,” said Schoenike. They connected for the first time with Jambeck last year at an Oceans conference, and since then, Schoenike said, the New Materials Institute has “moved our goals and the issue forward” together.
Each pair of sunglasses manufactured by Norton Point bears the latitude and longitude of its ocean plastic’s origin. In addition to Haiti, the company has identified ocean plastics from Indonesia and Hong Kong as potential collection streams (Credit: Amy Ware).
Jambeck explained that one of the plastics used in single-use plastic products is high-density polyethylene, or HDPE, which doesn’t biodegrade. “It only breaks down in the environment by creating smaller and smaller fragments,” she said. Jambeck said we need to ask how we can recapture the valuable resources in materials like littered plastics-that is, repurpose them into new products. “By changing the way we think about waste,” she said, “valuing the management of it, collecting, capturing and containing it, we can open up new jobs and opportunities for economic innovation, and in addition, improve the living conditions and health for millions of people around the world and protect our oceans.”
New Materials Institute researchers will work with Norton Point to help make “green” products from re-purposed plastics obtained from locations around the globe.
“Norton Point wants to know how the recycled materials respond to different manufacturing processes like extrusion and injection molding, and how they compare with virgin petroleum-based high-density polyethylene in terms of qualities like impact-resistance, toughness and durability,” said Jason Locklin, director of UGA’s New Materials Institute and associate professor of chemistry and engineering at UGA.
The institute also is looking to help Norton Point identify new types of products that make the best use of the material properties of ocean plastics.
In the same way that claims on other types of post-consumer waste are regulated, the New Materials Institute plans to explore the potential for certification and labeling of ocean plastics.
Dr. Jenna Jambeck, director of the Center for Circular Materials Management – part of the New Materials Institute – talks to middle school students about her successful Marine Debris Tracker mobile app.
For more information on Dr. Janbeck’s Marine Debris Tracker visit the Marine Debris Tracker page. You can download the app, track debris and contribute to the project.
Corporations are recognizing the issues surrounding plastic pollution in the world’s oceans and beginning to make changes.
NMI’s Dr. Jenna Jambeck is quoted in The Guardian
Jenna Jambeck, associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Georgia, says cooperation is key. “If industry can collaborate on this,” she says, “there can be economy of scale incentives.”
Photo: Michael Sullivan, UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
At UGA’s Skidaway Institute researchers are looking for plastics in the coastal environment and they are finding them almost everywhere, but not in the form they expected. Instead of finding tiny chunks of plastic they’re finding microscopic threads, or microfibers.
The New Materials Information Summit will take place on February 14 beginning at 9:00 am at the UGA Special Collections Library.
This event is open to UGA Faculty and Staff who are interested in new and advanced materials research. Please attend and discover UGA’s commitment to materials science and meet other researchers working in the field. Breakfast and lunch provided. Registration is free but required.
Dr. Jason Locklin, director of the UGA New Materials Institute, was one of the presenters.
Corporations are recognizing the issues surrounding plastic pollution in the world’s oceans and beginning to make changes.