Congratulations to the Many Happy Returns team for their IChemE Hutchison Medal! The team won for their paper on reuse.
The IChemE Hutchison Medal recognises work that stimulates debate within chemical engineering.
Our Many Happy Returns team were awarded the medal for their paper on reuse systems.
Here is the paper: Many Happy Returns: Combining insights from the environmental and behavioural sciences to understand what is required to make reusable packaging mainstream.
The team’s paper looks at both the environmental impact and the willingness of consumers to engage with reuse systems. It does this through a life cycle assessment and a survey.
Results from the life cycle assessment show that reusable containers outperform single-use plastic ones on most measures of environmental impact. However, the survey found that given the choice of disposal, reuse or recycling, that people prefer recycling.
Additionally, the paper discusses what makes people willing to engage with reuse.
Many Happy Returns is a multidisciplinary team. So as the title of the paper suggests, there are insights from both science and social sciences. Our winning team come from a range of departments across the University of Sheffield.
Our ‘packaging fairy’ Sarah Greenwood is a sustainable packaging and plastics specialist. Dr Stuart Walker is an engineer who specialises in Life Cycle Assessment.
Dr Harriet Baird is a Social and Health Psychologist with expertise in the design and evaluation of interventions designed to promote behaviour change.
Prof Thomas Webb, is a Professor of Psychology with a focus on behaviour change. Dr Rorie Parsons is a Geographer with a research focus on sustainability and understanding social change. Dr Seth Mehl, is a Lecturer in the Digital Humanities Institute. He investigate the language around plastics and re-use, to help inform communication.
Prof Andrew Slark is Professorial Fellow in Polymer Chemistry.
Prof Tony Ryan and Prof Rachael Rothman are co directors of the Grantham Centre and are both in the faculty of science. Rachael is Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering. And Tony is a Professor of Physical Chemistry.
Professor Rothman awarded IChemE medal.
Grantham Scholars win YES finance prize. Congratulations to Grantham Scholars Reena Sayani and Nancy Muringai for winning the YES finance prize.
Hyperpartisan News Detection Challenge won by Grantham Scholar. Hyperpartisan News Detection Challenge 1st prize won by GATE team. Congratulations to Grantham Scholar Ye Jiang who was part of the winning team!
Green Impact Gold for the Grantham Centre! We’re all so proud of our Green Impact team for getting a Gold Award.
Grantham Scholar Matt Hethcoat wins prize. Congratulations to Grantham Scholar Matt Hethcoat for winning a prize at the Joint Meeting of the Society for Tropical Ecology and the British Ecological Society.
Grantham Scholar wins chemistry prize. Congratulations to Grantham Scholar Eleanor O’Doherty! She has won an award at the Imagine Chemistry 2019 Nouryon challenge.
Our Roberta Fabrizi wins prize for poster. Grantham Scholar Roberta Fabrizi wins prize for poster at showcase of cutting-edge research for PhDs.