Engineering practices promoting sustainable development–widely defined as development that meets present-day needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs–are gaining traction.
Engineers who understand the importance of environmental resources and invent processes that facilitate their optimal utilization, and who can effectively apply sustainability concepts to their engineering solutions are becoming increasingly more in demand. That’s where Assistant Professor Carlos Landaverde-Alvarado's work comes in. He’s creating functional hands-on, multi-station experiments in undergraduate teaching labs that are equipping a new generation of scientific leaders who will ultimately be responsible for the sustainability of our shared resources and communities.
“The department has invested efforts and resources in the renovation and modernization of the undergraduate teaching laboratories, and our collaborations with industry partners have been at the center of this process,” Landaverde-Alvarado offered. “We believe it is our responsibility to educate our students to be leaders who can contribute to the creation of a sustainable future.”
Through a grant from UT Austin’s Green Fund, Landaverde-Alvarado is offering students a hands-on opportunity to study polymer processing, evaluate circular economies, and complete recycling projects.
What is the Green Fund?
The Green Fund is a competitive grant program funded by UT Austin tuition fees that supports sustainability-related projects and initiatives proposed by university students, faculty or staff.
Each student contributes $5 per semester and $2.50 per summer session to the Green Fund. Funds and mini grants are awarded each May on a rolling basis through an annual grant competition by a student-majority committee selection process.
The Funded Project
The project, “Implementing a Circular Economy for Plastics, Developing Continuous Recycling Processes to Reduce Campus Solid Waste, and Educating the New Generation of Sustainable Leaders” was awarded $80,000 over two years to develop a research study that allows a student project team to go from concept to development to implementation of a sustainable continuous process to recycle plastics that are produced by research laboratories on the UT campus. And in particular: non-conventional plastic waste streams not currently recycled on campus because they are too small for large-scale processing.
A team of eleven undergraduates, two master’s students and Dr. Landaverde-Alvarado ultimately aim to reuse plastics by recycling them into new products that generate value, thus promoting a circular-economy of plastics on campus. Through the Green Fund and a collaboration with Environmental Health & Sciences (EH&S) the team will identify material streams, pull samples, reach the campus community and help understand the environmental and economic impacts of the study. This project is also being integrated as a hands-on laboratory experiment for chemical engineering students interested in sustainability in the course CHE 264 - Chemical Engineering Process and Projects Laboratory.
Morgan Laner, Zero Waste program coordinator and Daniela Lozano, social media intern, both from UT Austin’s Resource Recovery, visited the undergraduate laboratories to create a Green Fund spotlight. Lozano observed, "I was very impressed with the students' involvement in the lab and their shared excitement. Learning about the Green Fund Grant has made me more aware of all the amazing sustainability initiatives and resources offered at UT!"
Eventually the student teams will use this laboratory and their results to propose solutions to recycling plastic and to create value-added products.
For more on funded projects, go to Green Fund.
