The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of several agencies that serve as members of the Federal Coordinating Council of Science, Engineering, and Technology. In this role, EPA chairs the Environmental, Safety, and Health Work Group of the Committee on Materials. One of the primary purposes of the Committee on Materials is to strengthen the government-industry:university partnership in materials research. Strengthening and building this partnership is also one of the goals of the Materials Research Society. You bring together an interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers from industry, government, and academia to exchange ideas on the forefront of materials research.

A recent National Research Council report, Materials Science and Engineering for the 1990s: Maintaining Competitiveness in the Age of Materials, identified six major science and engineering initiatives. One of these six initiatives was the environment. I believe that we will see, over the next few years, a major thrust in materials research to develop environmentally benign or “environmentally friendly” materials—materials that are less toxic and less polluting and do not deplete scarce natural resources, materials that have longer useful lives, and materials that can be recycled and require less energy to manufacture.