NYC Center for Healthier Plastic Solutions

Since 1950, the only pauses in the exponential growth in plastics production have been the 1970s oil crisis, the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. A further 30% increase is projected from 2025-2050. Much of the public concern about plastic has been focused on micro- and nanoplastics (MNP), but plastics represent a multidimensional and complex series of concerns for human health and the environment. The best documented health impacts relate to the release of monomers and additives widely detected in the general population, especially in communities located near production facilities.

Recycling has long been presented as a solution to these concerns, but recycled plastics themselves present health threats, and recycling itself is energy intensive. Plant- and other bio-based plastics have also been touted as a planet-friendly alternative and form of sustainable innovation, but they require high temperature to be recycled, and when the high costs force bioplastics into landfills, they produce methane, which is more potent than carbon dioxide in driving climate change. Laboratory studies also suggest greater oxidative stress and antiandrogenicity of chemicals found in liquids obtained from bioplastic bottles.

an ai-enabled machine that spells out NYU in plastic

Reductions in plastic production and increases in reuse are slow to achieve, and will require substantial technical and financial assistance, particularly to low- and middle-income countries where production is rapidly increasing. Innovation is urgently needed to develop new plastic materials that reduce toxic exposures.

The NYC Center for Healthier Plastic Solutions responds to the challenge posed by plastic threats to human health and the environment through a dual-track approach, using high-throughput experimentation and AI to accelerate:

Understanding: New tools and methods to detect, quantify, and trace how microplastics are formed, and how that depends on material characteristics and applications. We also seek to understand how microplastics and chemicals in plastic disrupt human and environmental health.
Solutions: AI-accelerated design of next-generation polymers engineered to minimize toxic microplastic release.

Read the Press Release

Addressing this challenge requires rethinking polymer design from the ground up: pairing synthesis of new materials with rigorous characterization of how they fragment under real-world conditions. By uniting biomedical, chemical, and environmental engineers, polymer scientists, and medical researchers around shared high-throughput capabilities not widely available today, the Center closes the loop between discovery and design — accelerating the development of next-generation sustainable polymers with reduced health effects, and working to make plastic pollution a problem of the past.

Our Approach

Experimental Platforms:

Polymer Synthesis and Processing

Supports rapid, parallel synthesis of novel polymers, including those from non-petroleum feedstocks, using both solvent-based and bulk liquid-phase polymerization.

Micro- and Nanoplastics Characterization

A complementary analytical suite spanning the nano-to-micro size range provides chemical identity, size distribution, and abundance data for degradation products.

Accelerated Degradation Testing

HT-compatible protocols covering the three primary pathways by which plastics fragment into MNPs in the environment: mechanical, chemical, and thermal.

Thermal, Chemical, and Mechanical Characterization

Studies the molecular weight, thermal stability, and mechanical behavior to establish what factors govern fragmentation resistance.

People

Leadership

Miguel Modestino

Co-Director, NYC Center for Healthier Plastic Solutions; Director, Sustainable Engineering Initiative; Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Electrochemical engineering; HT experimentation; ML-accelerated materials discovery; sustainable chemical manufacturing