A new minor trains students to contend with the global plastics problem. (Composite: Letty Avila. Image Source: Pixabay; iStock.)

New ‘Plastics Sustainability’ minor trains students to solve a stubborn problem

ByMargaret Crable October 13, 2023

The problem of plastic waste is daunting in scale.

The world generates nearly 140 million tons of single-use plastics annually. The equivalent of some 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped daily into our waterways, where it kills marine wildlife and leaches chemicals into the environment.

Microplastics have recently been found in a cave sealed off from humans.

But there’s hope. Scientists at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences are betting that innovation from agile young minds can help solve the problem.

A new “Plastics Sustainability” minor offered by USC Dornsife’s Department of Chemistry trains students in the skills necessary for finding solutions to our global plastic troubles. It’s funded by a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the United States Department of Commerce.

The program educates undergraduates in the technical science of plastic through courses such as CHE 475: “Physical Properties of Polymers” while also training them to think about the environmental, social and ethical issues surrounding the substance.

Students also learn about the business of plastic, including how to find entrepreneurial solutions to the surfeit of waste.

Instructors are uniquely suited to preparing students for this work. Gabilan Assistant Professor of Chemistry Megan Fieser is developing plastic alternatives and ways to break down existing waste. Professor of Chemistry Travis Williams recently demonstrated a way to turn plastic trash into medicine.

This coursework is unique to USC Dornsife. “We don’t think anybody else has exactly this sort of interdisciplinary minor that’s really focused on plastics and their circularity in the economy,” says Barry Thompson, professor of chemistry, who was the principal investigator on the grant proposal aimed at funding the minor. “There’s going to be so many jobs and so much need to deal with this in the coming years, and I think our students can be uniquely prepared.”