Mines/NREL Nexus Seed Presentation

It is difficult to imagine a world without plastics; look around you, they’re everywhere. Plastic wastes, both on the macro and micro scale, are contaminating oceans at an alarming rate, affecting marine life and our food supply. The effects of micro and nano plastics on human health and on ecosystem health are not fully known. In addition to pollution, plastic waste also presents many lost resources. As fossil fuels become increasingly expensive and in short supply, when plastic waste ends up in landfills or in the environment, we lose those valuable raw material resources. This nexus seed project has enabled us to generate preliminary results on macro plastic flows, micro plastics lost to the environment, exploring different options for microplastic modeling and waste stream optimizations. The collaboration between Mines and NREL aims to improve our understanding of the fate, transport, and environmental/human health impacts of nano, micro, and macro plastics in the environment. Ultimately, we aim to evaluate engineered solutions to both minimize plastic waste at the source and improve recovery of plastics.