At last month's Board of Trustees meeting, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz discussed recycling on campus and announced that the University would be supporting sustainable efforts like polymer research.
Chemistry professor Frank Leibfarth is leading the group of researchers who are studying the upcycling of polymer plastics.
He said that all plastics are polymers, but not all polymers are plastics. His team is researching chemical reactions on plastics so that the product of that reaction is a new plastic with a higher value than the material beforehand.
“Our idea is that the upcycling process can create an economic incentive for recycling where you would want to recycle because there's actually money there,” he said.
In order to make Leibfarth’s team’s research more accessible to the community, Jamilia Martineau-Lopez, the interpretive programs lead coordinator at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, put together programs to teach visitors about polymer research.
The staff customizes their activities to visitors of all ages in the Launch Lab makerspace.
One of the makerspace's main focuses is reusing and recreating instead of consuming, Martineau-Lopez said.
Last year, the staff dedicated a month to sustainability as the future of engineering and focused on upcycling and repairing. Activities, such as upcycling old fabrics and making pollinator seed bombs from recycled paper were offered, along with presenting research about polymer plastic.
By coming up with hands-on activities for visitors, Martineau-Lopez believes her team at the planetarium was able to turn this abstract research on plastics into a tangible thing that community members could better understand. They also hope that efforts will help community members be more conscious about their recycling habits.
