Can We Turn the Tide on the Problem of Plastics?

Plastics are chemical compounds that have proven to be inordinately useful for humanity—disposable syringes for example. The problem is, they don’t degrade on a human timescale. And once discarded, they begin breaking down into micro- and nanoplastics and drift into the air and water, becoming virtually impossible to recover.

URI students, faculty, and alumni are involved on many fronts and in a wide range of research. Last winter, Dr. Peter J. Snyder, URI’s vice president for research and economic development and professor of biomedical sciences, hosted a brainstorming session of experts from across the University to discuss how URI could tackle the problem. As a research university, he says, URI has tremendous value to bring to this global effort.

“We have one of the world’s finest schools of oceanography and one of the nation’s most productive colleges of environment and life sciences. Our research strengths are squarely within environmental science, the study of human impacts on the environment, coastal resiliency, ocean health, marine biology, and the impacts of global warming. We have talented and passionate people, and I see a lot of capability to tackle these problems. That includes engineering, polymer chemistry, marine biology, marine affairs, and public policy, as well as educational, social, and cultural initiatives that we need to take to really wrap our arms around the complexity of this problem.”

Snyder’s brainstorming group mapped all the ways plastic gets into the marine environment and how URI could identify approaches to mitigating the problem. The result looked like a giant spiderweb. Understanding that no single entity can solve everything, the group worked to distill that web into areas where URI could have the greatest impact.

From that web grew a University-wide strategic initiative with a working title of “Plastics: Land to Sea.” Currently writing its position statement, the group is refining thrust areas for research.

“We’re taking an inordinately complex problem and identifying five research areas we can go deep in and really have an impact. We’ve been working with faculty across the University as well as external partners and will release our initiative with a new website and campaign this fall,” Snyder reports.

Read the full story from University of Rhode Island here.