Webinar: Plastic Law and Policy - What Chemical Engineers Need to Know

Plastic policy is rapidly developing globally with better characterization of harm to human health and the environment from plastic pollution. In the context of the March 2, 2022, United Nations Resolution to End Plastic Pollution, this discussion will review the current status and developing future policy and regulation regarding plastic waste and plastic pollution in the United States and globally. Topics covered include

• a recent history of global plastic waste policy
• how plastic waste management fails to prevent plastic pollution, including where United States federal legislation falls short
• different approaches other nations, and some states within the United States, have adopted to mitigate plastic pollution
• specific aspects of the post-use plastic feedstock that render recycling and reuse problematic, including plastic products that result in plastic pollution that has no route to capture at this time

• global efforts to develop an international agreement to end plastic pollution by 2024

Presenter: Mary Ellen Ternes, Partner, Earth & Water Law, LLC

Mary Ellen Ternes, Partner, Earth & Water Law, LLC, and an AIChE Fellow, has served as a leader in ChE and environmental law with EPA, industry, and as a senior partner and environmental-practice group chair at private law firms providing outside counsel for business, municipalities, and science-focused environmental nonprofits. She earned her BEChE at Vanderbilt Univ. and her JD with high honors at the Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law. Her AIChE activities include Co-Chair, 2010 Spring Meeting; Vice Chair, Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum; Founding Chair, Chemical Engineering and the Law Forum; Chair, Climate Change and Regulatory and Legislation sections, Environmental Div.; Founding Chair, Public Affairs and Information Committee (PAIC); co-author, AIChE 2014 and 2019 Climate Change Policy; Editorial Board, Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy; Climate Solutions Policy Initiative; and recipient of the Environmental Division’s Service Award. Outside AIChE, she served/serves as President, American College of Environmental Lawyers (Fellow); Chair, 2008 Annual Conference on Environmental Law, American Bar Association; External Advisory Committee, Vanderbilt Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Dept.; Senior Fellow, Global Council of Science and the Environment; and United Nations Delegate for treaty negotiations to end plastic pollution.

To attend this webinar, please register by visiting the REGISTRATION link prior to the event.