Environment
If you want to edit this page please click here to login (username: tppStudent password: E40)
Topic: Adaptive Management of Water Systems
By: Cory Ip ‘10
Supervisor: Jan Adamowski
Description of the project: As climate change and growing populations put increasing stress on water resources, the need for new methods of management which respond well to uncertainty has become clear. The adaptive management framework of ecosystem management incorporates experimentation and recognition of uncertainty as its core principles. This project undertakes a theoretical evaluation of this emerging management approach, with a focus on how water management regimes can transition to an adaptive management approach. These theoretical findings will be applied to a case study of water management in Cyprus.
Topic: The Economic Viability and Environmental Impact of Electronic Waste Recycling
By:Boma Brown-West ‘10
Supervisor: Randy Kirchain
Description of the project: The fate of electronic waste (i.e. computers, monitors, cellphones, appliances) has becoming a large problem, especially as the sales of consumer electronics continues to grow. My thesis asks under what conditions the recycling and reuse of e-waste can be economically viable. More specifically, I quantify how elements of the system architecture (e.g. collection system, products collected) and elements of the system context (e.g. legislation) can lead to a net zero cost recycling/reuse system. My thesis also investigates the role that uncertainty (in inflow composition, etc) plays in the e-waste recycling industry.
Topic: Plastics: End-of-Life Fate
By:Melissa Zgola ‘11
Supervisor: Randy Kirchain
Description of the project: Industry and manufacturers of consumer goods often want to do the right thing: they want to be environmentally friendly and meet consumer expectations, within economic constraints. One such example is in the use of plastic to package consumer goods. Are biopoylmers, such as PLA, truly more environmentally friendly than conventional plastics like PET and PVC? Though I’m just getting started with my research in MSL, I hope to investigate this question in terms of end-of-life. What happens to these plastics when they hit the landfill or are incinerated? Are current LCA methods doing enough to estimate the true environmental and public health impacts?