I've Got One Word For You Minnesota, Plastics!

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.

2015-12-29 Update

The Policy Catalyst Blog is no longer on the Internet. The above link to the blog post has been updated to the Internet Archive. The content of the post has also been reproduced below.