The movement is still somewhat small and the challenge is big — more than 8 million metric tons big — but UC Santa Barbara chemical engineer Susannah Scott, leader of the Mellichamp Academic Initiative in Sustainable Manufacturing, is confident that something can be done about the ubiquitous issue that is plastic.

So were the 40 or so guests — members of industry, experts in the scientific community and up-and-coming engineers and scientists — who attended a two-day polymer upcycling workshop held at Elings Hall (California NanoSystems Institute) at UCSB. The purpose, said Scott, was to start some of the best minds on cracking the problem of plastic.

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