Environmental Symposium
We will be hosting an online Symposium April 26, featuring amazing speakers from around the world.
Please use this Google Form to register.
8:00am PST
Dr. Grace Chen
UMass Lowell
Advanced Recycling of Plastic Waste. Talk about advanced recycling methods such as chemical recycling technologies for recycling plastic waste
8:30am PST
Student Research
Student researchers will present their work!
9:00am PST
Dr. Pauline Mendola
University of Buffalo
Maternal and infant risks associated with air pollution and extreme temperature. An overview of the scientific literature on the impact of ambient environmental factors (air pollution, temperature) and risk for adverse pregnancy and infant health outcomes.
9:30am PST
Dr. Benjamin Bostick
Columbia University
The lifetime of plastic: how long is forever? Describing the lifetime and lifecycle of plastics in the environment.
10:00am PST
Dr. Winnie
Courtene-Jones
Bangor University
Biodegradable plastic: an overview of what this is, and details on research into the degradation and effects of biodegradable plastic.
10:30am PST
Veronica Pagowski
Stanford
Using genomics to understand larval dispersal at sea in the context of changing coastlines.
11:00am PST
Carter Edenfield
NorthWestern University
Plastic pollution is a growing global challenge, driven in large part by the persistence of polyolefins, which comprise the majority of plastic waste. Traditional recycling methods struggle to effectively process these materials, but chemical recycling offers a promising alternative by breaking down polyolefins into reusable hydrocarbon products. This talk will introduce the principles of catalytic chemical recycling, focusing on recent advancements in polyolefin hydrogenolysis using single-site heterogeneous catalysts supported on highly Brønsted-acidic supports. These catalysts enable efficient bond cleavage, facilitating the conversion of plastic waste into valuable feedstocks for new materials. This approach provides a potential pathway towards a more sustainable and circular plastic economy.
11:30am PST
Dr. Chris Jones
UC Berkeley
Local governments are essential to mitigating climate change, yet most lack information on which actions within their control are most effective. As a first step, the CA Air Resources Board encourages local governments to conduct climate action plans (CAPs), yet these plans are costly and labor intensive. Rather than each city and county individually collecting data and conducting quantitative analysis, our lab centralizing and streamlining these activities, saving local governments millions of dollars annually in planning costs, and shifting scarce local resources into implementation of equitable climate policies and programs. The project is particularly useful for small cities and marginalized communities with fewer resources.
12:00pm PST
Gabriela Nagle Alverio
Duke University
Climate Migration: The Human Impacts of Climate Change
12:30pm PST
Refuse and Reuse Team
How to mitigate the plastic on your school campus. We will share strategies for working with administration, sources for biodegradable products that offer discounts to schools, setting up clothing and electronic exchanges, and how to set up hydroponic farming.
Student Research Contest
Step 1
Create an original research paper related to the environment and submit using this Google Form
Step 2
Refuse and Reuse will post all entries on our Instagram @refuseandreuseorg and use #refuseandreuseorg
Step 3
Entry that receives the most likes by April 25 wins $1000