• Question: Does any of your work damage the environment?

    Asked by lossielolo to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Unfortunately yes, some of the chemicals we use are really damaging to the environment. For example if we flushed them down the sink and they got into the water supply, a lot of fish would die. We try our best to find green alternatives and when we do have to use them, we make sure we put them into special waste containers instead of down the sink.

    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      While we only use toxic chemicals when he have to, this can be fairly often in the lab. Generally, when a safer less toxic alternative is available we will use that. We also have a responsibility to make sure things are disposed of safely and in a way that causes minimal damage to the environment. There are large areas of science dedicated to trying to make research more “green” and environmentally friendly.

    • Photo: Lynne Thomas

      Lynne Thomas answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      We sometimes use chemicals that are dangerous if we were to release them into the environment. We try to use as little of them as we can and we are careful not to just flush them down the sink. There are a lot of chemistry processes that we use in the world to make every day things which are really not so good for the environment so even small improvements are worth while investigating. We also use bits of equipment which use a lot of energy to run so there are environmental impacts there too. But I hope that by doing the work that we do, the overall benefits to society are greater than the environmental cost.

    • Photo: Simon Redfern

      Simon Redfern answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      The most damaging aspect of our work in terms of environmental damage is probably power consumption. Most of my equipment needs electricity to work. But the results that these experiments give us show us how the Earth responds to environmental change, and will help us plan for a more efficient and environmentally friendly future.

Comments