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Just put up a Humphrey post on recycling and Pepsi’s new bio-based plastic bottles.

As always, it is important for policy makers to ask how they can enable citizens and businesses to achieve both of the goals of sustainability. Pepsi’s new bio-bottles highlight one of the questions facing policy makers: what can be done to make the use of recycled materials more appealing to manufacturers? My question to policies makers is, what can be done to make it cheaper for manufacturers to use recycled materials?

Read the whole post at the Policy Catalyst.

Yesterday was the last day of the Minnesota State Fair, and today was the first day of classes. Seems like the perfect time for a post about working on a State Fair exhibit.

If you spent some time in the EcoExperience this year you likely noticed a new exhibit on sustainable polymers. As a research assistant I was involved in the Center for Sustainable Polymer’s (CSP) effort to create this exhibit from scratch. I and everybody at the Center worked hard to put together this exhibit, and based on what I saw at the Fair all that work was worthwhile. With our success in mind, I would like to reflect on my involvement and consider what I learned:

Full post at the Policy Catalyst.

In time for the holiday weekend, a new post about standards for “sustainable” and “bio-based.”

“As we make scientific and commercial advancements in bio-based energy and building materials we are witnessing an emerging market for “sustainable” and “bio-based” products. With these terms being thrown around the question is bound to come up: what does it mean to be sustainable or bio-based?”

Full post can be found at the Policy Catalyst.

I recently attended the University of Minnesota’s Energy, Economic and Environmental conference, and have written a post about my initial reactions.

“A friend of mine joked that we may soon hear that “the environment is a conspiracy by the man,” and E3′s keynote speaker, Dr. Lawrence Kazmerski, noted that the conference’s size vindicated the work and concerns that he has built his career around. The environment is no longer a fringe subject, and I for one am relieved.“

Full post can be found at the Policy Catalyst.

Just put up quick post about Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute. Mr. Brown recently published a new book, Plan B 4.0, and will be visiting the Humphrey Center on November 16th to give a lecture about the world’s food supply.

“Mr. Brown, founder and President of the Earth Policy Institute, has recently published his latest book, Plan B 4.0, Mobilizing to Save Civilization. Plan B 4.0 is a continuation of Mr. Brown’s work on food supply and climate change, and serves as a reminder of, and purposes solutions to, the challenges that humanity will soon face in feeding itself. As Mr. Brown points out, we are already seeing proof of these impending challenges in the rising cost of basic foods and the recent trend of developed nations buying up large tracts of land in foreign (and often developing) countries in order to grow food for its citizens. There are, however, measures that can be taken to avert these challenges, such as a transition to a clean and sustainable energy economy, as well as careful design and planning of our urban centers.”

The full post can be found here.

My blog has been pretty quiet over the last couple of months as I have adjusted to life as a graduate student. Aside from starting grad school, I have also started my job as a research assistant for the Center for Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Humphrey Institute, which involves working with the Center for Sustainable Polymers (CSP) to promote their work and educate the public about the benefits of sustainable polymers. That means, among other things, that I am blogging for the center. Therefore, every once in a while, starting today, you will see me post a quick summary of, and link to, a post I have made for CSP. Why? Well shameless self promotion is what the Internet is all about.

“Plastic, the material that is as essential to modern life as electricity, faces a bleak future due to the impending shriveling of Earth’s oil supply. As Karen Youso recently discovered for her article “Six days without plastic? Good luck“, we really can’t sustain modern life without plastic. This begs the question, what are we going to do? Fortunately, recent scientific advancements have shown that we can continue to manufacture plastic by replacing oil with biobased sources.”

Read the full post at Policy Catalyst.