Is Environmental Engineering the Right Way to Go?

I am considering environmental engineering because I am interested in finding solutions for environmental problems. I am more interested in research and design of things as well as teaching and advising people of solutions that can help the environment than making sure that companies follow government regulations. I’m not sure if environmental engineering is what I imagine it to be, though, because some engineering blogs say that you do a lot of tedious work and paperwork, and you may feel frustrated because you are not helping much. I want to choose environmental engineering because I heard of people creating things like yucca bags that can replace plastic bags, using bacteria to filter dirty water, hydrogen powered cars, and the EV-1. I also like math and science. I don’t know if things like that match environmental engineering specifically or if that is just the feats of inventors and biologists. I know that not only engineers can make things, but I would like to know how to make things. Thank you for answering my question!

Over a hundred years ago, civil engineers designed public works facilities that led to huge improvements in public health: sewer systems, drinking water treatment plants and distribution systems, stormwater and floodwater control sytems. In the second half of the twentieth century, particularly after the passage of the Clean Water Act in the US, design and construction of wastewater treatment plants became a major focus. The design of these facilities required understanding of water chemistry, microbiology, etc. This branch of Civil Engineering came to be called Sanitary Engineering, and the people who did this work were called Civil/Sanitary Engineers (not the joking “sanitation engineer” that is sometimes used to refer to garbage collectors). In the 1980s, Sanitary Engineering got rebranded as Environmental Engineering, and with it came an increased scope, especially dealing with industrial wastewater treatment, hazardous waste site remediation, etc.

You are right in stating that a lot of today’s Environmental Engineering is concerned with regulations, and designing plants to meet regulations and treatment targets. This doesn’t mean you’re not helping things doing this work, but it can feel pretty remote.

My sense is that if you want to be a product designer working on environmentally-friendly products, you should study a different field, probably mechanical engineering. An ME can work in a very wide range of industries and fields, and as an ME you are equipped for automotive design, solar panel work, fluid flow problems, etc. Speaking more broadly, many of the projects that you would want to work on are multi-disciplinary, meaning you might have a design engineer working with a microbiologist, maybe a materials chemist, etc all working together towards the goal such as designing a low-cost portable water purification system.

Other reasonable fields to study could be chemistry, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, computer programming (software engineering), material science, microbiology, etc.