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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

A woman wearing a green jacket stands outdoors in front of a large pile of garbage, highlighting the urgent issue of plastic in oceans reported by The Guardian.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.

[button target=”_self” hover_type=”default” font_style=”normal” text_align=”right” text=”READ THE STORY” icon_color=”#ffffff” link=”https://greatcommitments.uga.edu/story/turning-trash-into-treasure/” color=”#ffffff” hover_color=”#ba0c2f” background_color=”#ba0c2f” hover_background_color=”#ba0c2f” border_color=”#ba0c2f” hover_border_color=”#ba0c2f”]

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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Environmental engineer talks to middle schoolers about her marine debris tracker

jason on February 28, 2017

Prepare

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.

Read the full article from the Golden Isles News

A logo with a sea turtle in the center, surrounded by the text Marine Debris Initiative, icons of a recycling symbol and a trash can—perfect for inspiring middle schoolers to become environmental engineers or use tools like Marine Debris Tracker.

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.

 

Oceans could contain more plastic than fish by 2050: NMI’s Dr. Jenna Jambeck quoted in The Guardian

on February 25, 2017

A woman wearing a green jacket stands outdoors in front of a large pile of garbage, highlighting the urgent issue of plastic in oceans reported by The Guardian.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.”

Read the full article in The Guardian.

NMI Information Summit

on January 13, 2017

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.

Click HERE for more information.

Industry, academia met at UGA to talk about the future of fabrics

on October 26, 2016

Industry, academia and military mixed Thursday to talk about fibers and fabrics at a conference on the University of Georgia campus.

They didn’t talk about ribbons and bows at the day-long “AFFOA Industry Day” in the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, though, but manufacturing processes that might dramatically reduce the water needed for dyeing fabrics of the future – fabrics that might render a uniform or parachute undetectable, or garments that could keep their its wearer cool or warm, depending on outside conditions.

See complete article in the Athens Banner-Herald, Tuesday, Oct. 25.