Does your work require IRB approvals? If Yes, articulate your detailed IRB strategy. If No, explain why you don’t need IRB approval and identify situations when you might need IRB approval.

Yes, our work requires IRB approval. First, the PlasTech Venture activities satisfies IRB’s definition of research. The team is conducting a systematic investigation on recyclable plastics and developing methodologies to diverge the plastic waste from the environment. Information generated from this research will contribute to generalized knowledge because it has the potential to improve the well-being of a community upon implementation. Second, the research does involve human subjects. The team needs to conduct stakeholder interviews to gather information that are crucial to the project, such as determining the needs of FIlipinos and suggestions on the project’s implementation. Even though PlasTech Venture satisfies IRB’s definition of conducting research and involving humans, the project may be qualified from an exception due to minimal risks involving humans. The people being interviewed will not receive any harm or discomfort greater than ordinary encounters in daily life.

Develop an outline for your mid-semester presentations.

1. Problem/Opportunity being addressed from macro level
   1. Currently 1,360 tons of plastic are being produced in metro Manila alone every single day. Only 20% of this plastic waste is recycled while the remaining 80% goes into the Philippines environment. As a result, environmental issues that contribute to the well-being of Filipinos are on the rise. For example, 50% of the waterways in the Philippines are contaminated with plastic wastes. 
2. Problem/Opportunity being addressed from micro level
   1. The PlasTech Venture team plans on combating the plastic crisis by diverging plastics from the landfill and ocean. In order to achieve this goal, the team is looking to develop value-added products made from recycled plastics. Besides combating the plastic crisis, this approach also gives Nanays (a growing demographic unemployment group) an opportunity to re-enter the workforce and improve their well-being. 
3. Explain approach and how proposed solution will work
   1. The team is giving entrepreneurs in the Philippines an economic opportunity to turn plastic waste into low-cost raw material that can be used to manufacture a higher value product for profit. Plastic waste materials will first be collected, cleaned, and scrapped in junk shops. The plastic waste will then be melted and formed into a valuable product to be sold. Money generated from this process will be used as salary to improve the well-being of nanays living in poverty. 
4. What larger system does the project exist in?
   1. The project exists not only in the recycling system in the Philippines but also globally in other countries.
5. Discuss work that has been done so far — research
   1. First, the team has conducted market research in the Philippines to determine the kind of products that will not only sell, but also meet the needs of Filipinos. From this investigation we determined the following products meets our criteria: nipa huts, rain management, building materials, and tiles. From this list, we narrowed down our product suite to the following items: riles/pavers, rain management system, and wall system. In order to determine whether or not the products will be feasible in the Filippino market, we need to conduct further research in the following fields:
      1. Material properties: The team needs to investigate plastic material’s reaction under tension and compression. In addition, the team will also be conducting an investigation to determine the acceptable contamination tolerance in our products.
      2. Composition of waste stream: The team needs to investigate the composition of plastic waste stream in order to determine what types of plastics are available and their abundance. This information is crucial in determining which plastics certain products will be made out of. 
      3. Machinery/processing options: After finalizing the design of our products, the team will need to investigate the process and machinery design needed to manufacture the product. 
6. Identify challenges in research and design and plans to address them
   1. One challenge the team faced in research was identifying the metrics the products will have to achieve. In our building material product, for instance, we conducted an investigation on existing building codes in the Philippines to determine the strength requirement of our building block product. The team was surprised to find that there were essentially no building codes in the Philippines. Furthermore, there is no existing information on the compressive strength of recycled plastics. So the team is now facing the challenge of starting from the ground up. Another challenge is identifying appropriate market interest. We managed to generate a product suite solely from our observations and online research on the Philippines. However, there is no way of knowing exactly how acceptable our products are without contacting or conducting a survey on the target customer (residential Filipino). 

What supporting evidence will you provide for each point?

*included in outline

How will you boost your credibility every step of the way?

To boost credibility, we will try our best to not look at the slides (as shown in various videos in lecture). Also, we will let each presenter speak about their strong suits and areas of interest in the project (what they know the most about/what they have researched) to be sure a group member is not forced into talking about something they didn’t do a whole lot of research on.