September 5, 2018
Drs. Jim Elser and Matt Scholz of the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance made presentations on topics related to phosphorus sustainability at recent conferences in Asia and Europe.
Jim Elser, executive director of the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance, gave a keynote address at the 4th International Conference on Environmental Pollution and Health held at Nankai University in Tianjin, China. His talk was “Phosphorus, Food, and Our Future,” regarding the critical need for this non-renewable resource in agriculture and the impact of excess phosphorus in waterways.
Other speakers at the conference represented the US Environmental Protection Agency and universities in China, Japan, Canada, several European countries, and the US. Visit http://environhealth.cn for additional information about the conference.
Jim Elser gave the same talk at the Center for Material Cycles and the Environment in the Department of Environmental Planning and Management of Nanjing University in Nanjing, China.
Matt Scholz, program manager of the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance, made a presentation at the third European Sustainable Phosphorus Conference (ESPC3) in Helsinki, Finland. He introduced the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance as a membership organization and North America’s central forum and advocate for the sustainable use, recovery and recycling of phosphorus in the food system. The Sustainable Phosphorus Alliances works with industry to find solutions and is the North American analog to the European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform, which hosted the conference. Matt also provided context for the phosphorus situation
Other speakers at the conference represented governments and sustainability organizations in countries across Europe. Visit https://phosphorusplatform.eu/espc3-2018 for additional information about the ESPC3 and watch the presentation made by Matt Scholz on YouTube at http://bit.ly/ESPC3_Scholz.
More information on the activities of the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance is available at https://phosphorusalliance.org.