Penn State Behrend expert on plastics pollution sees need for 'trash czar'

Studying plastic pollution energized Sherri Mason and set her career in a new direction.

"I was an atmospheric chemist by training. And that's what I spent the first decade or so of my career doing," Mason said in a telephone interview.

That changed when she participated in a July 2012 environmental survey of the Great Lakes.

"It was supposed to be kind of a fun side project," Mason said. "I was still an atmospheric chemist until we brought in our first trawl. And, you know, I looked into the 'caught' end, where everything collects from the Manta net. And I swear, perfectly perched, right in the middle, was a little ball of Styrofoam. And I was like, 'This is what I want to do.'

"I discovered over those three weeks of that first voyage that I had a passion for this area of research that I had never experienced before. I couldn't sleep at night because I was so overwhelmed with questions and ideas for projects that we could do in this area of study. So I decided by the end of that voyage that I was going to completely change research directions."

Her research from that trip ended up making a huge splash. The study found that plastic pollutants circulate in pockets of the Great Lakes at concentrations higher than any other body of water on Earth. Given the importance of the Great Lakes to the region, her work was cited by hundreds of newspapers, radio stations and television news programs.

At the time, she was a professor at State University of New York in Fredonia. But in 2019, her expertise in plastics pollution took her career in a new direction, to Penn State Behrend, a school best known for its plastics engineering program.

Today Mason is sustainability coordinator at the Erie, Pa.-based university. Her duties are broader, but they still include some teaching and research. Except now when she teaches lessons on marine plastic, she's instructing future polymer engineers, and her university colleagues include polymer engineering faculty.

Some might think bringing Mason to Behrend was a surprising hire. Mason calls it a strategic move for the school.

"There were people on the hiring committee who were from the engineering school. In my interview, I included a teaching talk about my research, and that led to some really interesting conversations," she said.

It turned out to be a good fit. Coming to Erie brought her physically closer to the Great Lakes and to the next generation of plastics engineers and managers.

"There is an awareness, not only in the industry, but within the program, about end-of-life issues with plastics. And I think they have an honest interest in really looking at that and thinking about it and finding an honest solution to it," Mason said.

Today Penn State Behrend has an emerging program looking polymer engineering and science. The school is also looking at becoming a member of the Council of the Great Lakes Region, a cross-border U.S.-Canada business group that is developing a plastics pollution plan for the Great Lakes, with initial funding from several plastics companies. That group announced March 31 that it is launching a five-year effort to identify projects to tackle plastic pollution.

As an expert on plastics sustainability, Mason is well versed on materials and issues. She feels that there is growing awareness of plastic waste issues in developed nations.

"But honestly, as a whole, the plastic pollution problem is getting worse. Production is continuing to increase. And unfortunately, the pandemic has actually made things worse because of the increase in personal protective equipment, disposable personal protective equipment and takeout containers.

"I do think that within developed nations, because of the publicity, people are becoming more aware, and they're pushing for changes, and they're making changes in their own lives," she said.

Products like single-use plastic bags are convenient, but people don't always associate the products with their end-of-life cost, she said.

"People don't have time to be thinking about that, but the reality is, quite frankly, I'm tired of paying for other people to have plastic bags that I see blowing in the wind. I don't use plastic bags, why do I pay for you to use them?

"I think that a lot of people would share that sentiment, if they fully realized how much of their tax money is going to subsidize the fossil fuel industry, how much was going into post-life cleanup that's associated with these 'convenient materials.'

"I think that there are ways for us to still have convenience without all of those associated costs," Mason said.

While true solutions are multifaceted, she said legislation needs to be a key part.

"You can put this in your article: President [Joe] Biden, please make me your trash czar. Because what I really think we need is a national waste management plan. It's stunning to me that it's the 21st century and we still don't have a comprehensive plan as a nation on how we're going to deal with our trash," she said.

Mason pointed out that the short history of plastics was born from a desire to protect the environment. Plastics put a stop to killing turtles to make decorative combs and slaughtering elephants to make ivory billiard balls.

"We were overusing natural materials. I think it's important to remember that," she said. "We just didn't have the foresight to understand the problems involved with using such a durable material to make products intended to be used for a very short period of time.

"Maybe we need to really think about this material and use it strategically. It's an amazing material, I get that. You know, it has properties that we can't get from natural materials. So, should we utilize it? Yes, but we need to use them much more strategically than we currently are," Mason said.