Revenge of the plastic bag: How unregulated trash management affects health

Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Tilley and her Global Health Engineering group study the engineered systems and technologies that affect human, environmental, and societal health. Especially in the urban areas of over-exploited countries, globalization has come at a cost: rapid technology uptake and rising incomes have negatively impacted the water, soil, and air that are needed to sustain the economy, the culture, and indeed, life. Blending engineering, economics, and qualitative methods, our work examines the ways in which user acceptance, regulatory and legal frameworks, economic feasibility, and political structures affect the adoption and sustainability of technology.

• Find out more about the speaker