But chemistry professor Sheila Browne says we can protect the environment even without changing our throwaway society. It sounds too good to be true, but Browne is making biodegradable plastics right here, right now. All it needs to decompose is moisture and fungi or bacteria. Pamela Maynard '97, Anastasia Dimitropoulou '97, and Tiffaney Burford '97 in her pioneering work creating biodegradable plastics. Luckily, more than 600 types of bacteria can do the job.
Bacteria actually produce the polymer, much as humans make and store fat.
Normally, the bacteria use the polymer for their own energy needs. You feed them sugar, oils, or starch, wait a few days, then harvest the polymer grown inside the bacteria. She has discovered that the nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer can be used to determine the best harvest time and to measure how much and what kind of polymer the bacteria create. In this field, she's a rarity both as a woman and as a liberal arts college professor. She has been invited to deliver lectures at major international conferences and published a recent article in Polymers .