Science Pub Hillsboro

"Paper, Plastic, or Cotton Tote Bag? Life Cycle Assessments of Everyday Items"

Every day we are confronted with choices that impact our environment: Paper, plastic, or reusable tote bag? Disposable plastic cup or reusable ceramic mug? Prius or Hummer? How do we really know what’s best for the environment? Learn more about how we evaluate the environmental impacts of various materials and products and some of the fundamental principles of green chemistry and sustainability as well. Warning: your intuition about environmental impacts is not always right!

David Tyler, Ph.D., is the Charles J. and M. Monteith Jacobs Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oregon, currently teaching with five colleagues on the chemistry of sustainability. His areas of research and expertise are the chemistry of plastics, catalysis, photochemistry, and sustainability; he has combined these interests into the development of plastics that degrade, after a delayed interval, to harmless products when they are exposed to light.