Question: How is your work going to help the environment

Bernard Ennis answered on 9 Nov 2015:

This is a really good question because it is something I think about all the time. It’s quite difficult to see how my work benefits the environment because the effects are not direct. Someone working on solar cells or wind energy or cleaning up the oceans has quite a clear impact on the environment. My work helps car manufacturers build cars which are lighter (use less fuel) and use relatively less material to make it safe. Steel can also be recycled almost completely and as many times as you like. That can’t be said of all materials.

Steel has the best environmental performance over the whole life cycle (which includes how much energy is used in making it, using it and recycling). Some cheaper materials like plastics can only really be used once unless we take a lot of effort to separate out the different types during recycling. Also, plastics are made from oil, so as the amount of oil in the world runs out, plastics will become even more expensive. At the moment most plastics are just burned to give us energy and that is a real waste of material and has a big impact on global warming.