SETAC 9th World Congress

Why Independent Local and Indigenous Science-Based Evidence and Expertise Are Crucial to Ending Plastic Pollution

Safe, sustainable and equitable solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis will require contributions from a wide range of experts, including independent scientists, citizen scientists, Indigenous peoples, waste pickers, and front line and fence line communities. 

The science-policy interface (SPI) is the process by which scientific knowledge informs and shapes policy, primarily by facilitating knowledge exchanges between scientists and policymakers. Guidance from all plastics experts will be needed for an equitable evidence-based SPI for the global plastics treaty to drive material, technical and systems innovations and a just transition toward a safer, more equitable, and more sustainable and transparent circular global economy. 

The success of the global plastics treaty will depend on the effectiveness of its SPI, and the success of its SPI will rest on its participatory, inclusivity, transparency, and conflict of interest mitigation policies and processes. Based on these principles and policies, the SPI could support the universal human rights to science; access information; a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; and Indigenous rights including data sovereignty.   

About Trisia Farrelly

Professor Farrelly (ONZM, FRG)  is the Coordinator of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, Senior Scientist at Cawthron Institute, and Honorary Fellow at Massey University in New Zealand. Farrelly sat on the UN’s Scientific Advisory Committee for plastics in 2018, and she is technical advisor to Pacific Islands countries for the plastics treaty. She is a Senior Editor, Cambridge Prisms Plastics, and in 2021 she wrote the edited book titled “Plastic Legacies: Pollution, Persistence, and Politics.” Farrelly has received two university medals and several national awards including Excellence in Product Stewardship and New Zealand Women of Influence finalist for the environment category. Last year, she was made a King’s Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Ecology. 

Electrochemical Wastewater Refining for Circular Nitrogen Management

Nitrate and ammonia are common water pollutants that can alter aquatic ecosystems (e.g., eutrophication) and threaten human health (e.g., methemoglobinemia). This talk will describe recent efforts to convert nitrate to ammonia and separate ammonia as a commodity useful for fertilizers, disinfectants and other products. Electrochemical methods are particularly well-suited to on-site, distributed treatment and can be applied to point sources, such as municipal wastewater, and non-point sources, such as agricultural runoff. In particular, we focus on systematic investigation of aqueous chemistry during treatment of simulated and real polluted waters, including solar-driven electrochemical stripping and electrodialysis and nitrate reduction. While we focus on nitrogen, the talk will also involve discussion of the fate of trace organic contaminants and pathogens that are prevalent in treated waters, including in septic tanks in low-income communities. As we advance technologies that enable a circular nitrogen economy, we consider the social and economic viability of these novel approaches to evaluate long-term rebalancing of the nitrogen cycle.

About William Tarpeh

William Tarpeh is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University. The Tarpeh Lab uses catalysis and separations to advance wastewater refining, which generates tunable portfolios of products from water pollutants. In addition to improving mechanistic understanding of novel materials and processes, the group also advances wastewater treatment in resource-constrained communities to improve access to water, fertilizers and chemical commodities. Tarpeh completed his B.S. in chemical engineering at Stanford, his M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, and postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan. His recent awards include the NSF CAREER Award, Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, AIChE 35 Under 35 and the Environmental Division Early Career Award, and the Electrochemical Society Young Investigator Fellowship.