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In the interview with Prof. Ngo, we told the professor how students opposed the idea of participating in seminars about plastic pollution according to our survey results. He mentioned that showing videos about plastic pollution may be vague and unpersuasive. He suggested that we make our survey and educational materials more convincing to students. Furthermore, Prof. Ngo explained the challenges we may encounter when publishing our project to the public. For example, the general public may believe that although they threw a plastic bottle into a recycling bin, the bottle will still go back to landfills anyways. Prof. Ngo suggested sharing videos showing the real process of how other waste materials are recycled. These videos can deepen the knowledge and understanding of Hongkongers and convince them that recycling works.
Moreover, from our survey testing, we have realised that students are not familiar with less promoted government schemes such as the “plastic-free takeaway, use reusable tableware” campaign in Hong Kong. Prof. Ngo told us we can use a younger mindset to promote information on recycling, such as advertisements on Youtube or Instagram.
In addition, we have asked for advice on how to improve our survey design. Prof. Ngo suggested that the choices of answers should be short, simple and streamlined. Also, he advised us to use software and programs to analyze the data. He suggested that the survey should be paperless, making it easier to process. Prof. Ngo told us that students are self-conscious about their reputation and that they try to conceal the negative side of their image, such as showing they are active in recycling when they are not. He suggested that we keep the survey anonymous, so they could express their real thoughts to avoid bias in our survey results.
We have communicated with other recycling companies and NGOs like Plastic Free Seas to obtain advice on our educational materials like PowerPoints and e-booklet. Also, we have promoted the recycling process by using different videos online. This can hopefully promote the effectiveness of recycling to students and the public, and spread positive information about plastic reduction.
On top of that, we have made good use of social media platforms like Instagram to attract students to our project topic. We may also post information related to our chimeric proteins and recycling process to make our project more accessible to students.
Regarding the survey format, we have provided Chinese translations for certain sophisticated words to make sure the survey is understandable and simplified. In addition, we have used Google Form to conduct the survey and surveys are made to be anonymous. Furthermore, we made sure to physically monitor the surveyees and answer their enquiries if there are any. This could ensure that students do not make up answers and will therefore eliminate errors in our survey as much as possible. We have used the Excel “auto-sum” function and the one-way ANOVA technique to analyze our results.
In our online interview with Prof. Chan, he stated that our work as the HP team should be integrated with other sub-teams, namely the research team and the Drone & AI team. In addition, Prof. Chan pointed out that the work of the research team and the HP team should impact each other and that we should integrate with the project scope and design of our research team’s work.
In response to our survey, Prof. Chan has suggested that the results of our survey should reflect on the team’s design. Aside from collecting data, we should also integrate the results obtained from our survey into our future promotions to raise public awareness. Furthermore, he suggested that we should not only focus on PET plastic but all kinds of plastic, as the problem could not be easily eased by just breaking PET down.
Regarding the reasons why students do not participate in seminars pertaining to plastic pollution, Prof. Chan pointed out that it may be due to them being overexposed to such topics, making them feel fatigued towards recycling information. He mentioned providing new information in seminars to attract students’ attention. For the promotion of our project, he advised us to not only promote the problem of plastic pollution, but also educate the public on the process of plastic digestion with enzymes, bringing their attention to the fruits of the research team.
In our presentations to students and other iGEM teams, we have quoted data from our surveys, then explain our beliefs regarding said data. Also, we presented an overview of the situation of plastic pollution, and showed that our team is aware of the severity of plastic pollution.
Furthermore, in our educational sharing session, we focused on deepening students’ knowledge regarding the enzymatic degradation of plastic and promoting our chimeric proteins. We have compared chemical recycling and mechanical recycling to emphasize the advantages brought by our dual enzyme system. We have also introduced all 7 types of plastics and their properties to students to get an overview of plastic products.
When promoting our project to students, we have used other sub-teams’ results such as the Research team’s SEM (scanning electron microscope) photos and the Drone & AI team’s tagging results. This can integrate our team with the Research and the Drone & AI teams to make our project more deeply interconnected.
Moreover, we have contacted Plastic Free Seas and they agreed to upload our project description and information about chemical recycling onto their website. Clearbot also has used our AI team’s data for the development of their AI model as collaboration.
In our interview with Clearbot, we have consulted Mr. Sidhant Gupta on our method of presentation of our project. Mr. Sidhant recommended making more interactive activities, such as games and task completion to engage students into our sharing session.
We were especially interested in their collaboration experience with the local environmental charity, Plastic Free Seas and we asked about possible collaboration with this NGO. As Mr. Sidhant mentioned, the organisation Plastic Free Seas has more resources and experience in the recycling and environmental conservation field compared to our team, so we could exchange our technology or resources.
In our sharing session, we have designed a presentation section with games related to recycling and enzymes, providing them with comprehensible powerpoint and education materials. We have organized a Kahoot session with them so that students can refresh their memories. On top of that, the Kahoot results can serve as a reference to determine the effect of our presentation on students’ knowledge on plastic pollution and our project.
After the interview, we have contacted Plastic Free Seas for possible collaborations. We had a meeting with their director and shared some of our newest survey data with them to seek their advice on how to improve students’ plastic usage through social media and our sharing session.
In our interview with the director and co-founder of Plastic Free Seas— Ms. Dana Winograd, we have consulted her advice on the content of our sharing session and educational materials.
Dana said that across Hong Kong, there are more than 1000 people actively participating in beach cleanups. However, more than 5 million plastic wastes are washed onto shores every day. Therefore, with the situation of plastic pollution being out of control, she suggested that we should not promote our chimeric proteins as a solution for plastic pollution. This is due to the fact that our enzyme is not yet mature enough to initiate large scale enzymatic degradation of PET bottles.
In our education materials, she advised that we could promote the 4Rs (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) as these are the factors that students can work on in real life while what happens in the recycling facilities are less relatable to them. The speed of humans throwing plastic away will always be faster than plastics being recycled. As a result, we should educate people on how to solve the origin of the plastic problem as well.
As students may not be confident in Hong Kong’s recycling system, Dana believed that we could use our proposed recycling system involving the enzyme we created to change this. We can introduce our enzymes to show the students that recycling technologies are improving everyday.
We have added a 4Rs section in our educational PowerPoint and booklet to make our project more relatable to students and encourage them. Additionally, we have put together interactive activities such as asking students to name plastic alternatives such as stainless steel straws and reusable shopping bags to encourage the use of such products.
Furthermore, we have reached out to New Life Plastic which is a local recycling plant in Hong Kong, targeting the recycling of PET and HDPE plastics. Through our meeting, we obtained information regarding the implementation of our research and learned more about how to make our project more practical and accessible. A visit will be placed when the facilities in the recycling plant are all settled in the near future.
