On Wednesday, we started our day by heading back to Sentinel Upcycling with Professor Mehta to meet with Jonathon Co. We also had the privilege of having  Myke, a professional photographer travel with us to capture important parts of our venture. We got a more detailed tour of Sentinel’s daily operations and got more insight on some of our concerns. We also discussed another collaboration between PlasTech and Sentinel regarding characterization testing of different plastic recipes Sentinel uses for their own products. We are so excited to head back to Lehigh and start the mechanical testing in our labs and see how this collaboration progresses during the fall semester!

As we expressed our concern about finding the right machinery for our facility, Sir Jonathon Co generously offered to connect us with one of his suppliers nearby who had shredders in stock. We made our way over to Taiwan Machinery and met with Jose Esteves who showed us his available shredders.  

On Thursday we decided the most effective way to spend our last full day in Manila would be to divide and conquer. Half of our team headed over to Resiklo Recycling to meet with Sir Kokoy to view some of the plastic shredding machines available. We have been focusing on finding the correct shredder because the machine needs to be able to shred sachets as well as harder plastics such as PET and HDPE. However, we have been met with the challenge of only finding shredders that perform well of either or but not all kinds of plastics. However, meeting with and viewing as many shredders as possible has been a great learning experience as we hone in on exactly how we want our shredder to perform and what specs are required for it to be worth an investment. The rest of our team spent the day editing our draft proposal that details the collaboration between UPD, DEMO and our team. We also sent emails to several other recycling companies that deal with all different types of plastics to see if we can gain more insight on their machinery and daily operations.

On Monday, we mostly spent the entire day editing our proposal document for UPD, and adding on new sections. We also set up various meetings throughout the week to set up the necessary infrastructure needed to continue working with these partners while at Lehigh

On Tuesday we met up with Mr.Buño for the second time to further our conversation on logistics. We walked around the property to understand the layout better and see if there are any vacant spaces that would be available for our use. Upon further discussion we decided we would need to build a separate shed that would fit our needs. DEMO’s property had a good amount of open space but we still face the problem of water and electricity needs. However, Mr Buño explained to us that installing at least the electricity would be relatively easy. Mr Buño also told us that in order to make a formal proposal, we’d need to first have a layout of our facility, as well as a formal document written for DEMO. Mr Buño also stated that hiring a new employee to collect plastic waste would likely be unrealistic. Rather, it’d be better if the individual colleges within the university could bring their plastic waste to DEMO and the PlasTech facility.

We then went to the Fab Lab to meet with Tito, as well as Sir Mitch. Sir Mitch gave us a tour of some of the areas of the FabLab we hadn’t seen before, like the pottery area, as well as the welding area. The professional photographer took some photos of us while taking the tour as well.

After this, we went back to the hotel to expand on our massive proposal document for the PlasTech research facility. This time however, we began to include DEMO’s role in this entire process. We went step through step, showing how exactly DEMO would be involved, and what we would need from them. We also developed a flowchart showing anyone interested in our project, as well as all stakeholders how plastic flows from consumers, through PlasTech’s process, and comes out as a higher value product via Sentinel’s work.

We began the fifth day by attending a meeting with the Department of Mining, Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering. We met with Ma’am Mitch and Ma’am Tiff to discuss the collaboration between their department and our project. Both showed interest in working together but agreed on the fact that we need to find a faculty advisor to move forward. We toured the department’s lab spaces and found their old shredder. Upon testing with a PET bottle and a sachet chip bag, the shredder showed to be unreliable for our needs. We also discussed working with the students from the National Service Training Program (NSTP) but came to the conclusion that it would be better to find students through the faculty advisor. Students passionate about making change and bettering the community would be better fit for the UPD research and the reality is that NSTP students might take on the position for the primary reason of filling a spot. With this new information the PlasTech team worked on creating a document to share as a faculty proposition. The document outlined the roles and responsibilities of the faculty member and students along with details on the partnership between Lehigh and UPD. 

The next day we started our day by visiting the Diliman Environmental Management Office (DEMO) which is the MRF located inside UPD’s campus. We met with Mr.Buño who explained their operations and connections to the university. We learned that DEMO mainly dealt with the campus composting and only collected plastic upon request. Once we explained our intentions to work with the DMMME, he explained that once we have developed a connection with them, we could then reach out to his department to set up a collection method to bring plastic to our new facility. We discussed the idea of adding a fourth bin to the already existing bins around campus. The three existing bins include food and organic waste, infectious waste, and recyclables. We proposed dedicating the fourth bin to plastics which would then eliminate the need for sorting of the recyclables.

After our meeting with Mr.Buño, we met with Ma’am Natsy at Cafe Via Mare located on UPD’s campus. Since Ma’am Natsy has so many community connections, we talked through how we could implement our system. She was hesitant to give any contacts before we have a concrete system with a more specific plan on how we plan to involve the community. She assured us that once we have our system down, she will connect our team with a nearby barangay.

At the end of the day we debriefed on our two meetings and made a game plan on how to move forward. We also prepped a new slideshow to present our updated pitch. This pitch would have more updated information, such as the UPD-PlasTech Research Facility, as well as how exactly the logistics of this would work.

We began day 3 by working at Seattle’s Best Coffee, and by continuing work on a document about UPD’s role for the establishment of a plastic recycling research facility on their campus. The document was mainly meant for internal purposes, like a guideline that we as a team were meant to create so that we could be on the same page. Once the document was finished, we invited Khanjan to look at our document. He suggested some changes and tweaks to the document, and the order of some of the sections of the document were changed

Following this, we visited the Marikina MRF with AR from our HEED team. He was extremely helpful in helping us organize the trip, and being our translator during the tour of the facility. In this facility, they shredded and extruded plastic into bricks, as well as even into chairs. The bricks were used to create gardens, while the chairs were oftentimes given to schools. This was very helpful to see because it allowed us to see what we aspire our facility to look like, and what changes we can make so that we can include sachets, as this MRF did not.

 

Next on Tuesday, we visited the Fortune MRF, which was much different than the Marikina MRF. This MRF focused on collecting sachet plastic and bottles from the nearby river, and making bottles filled with compacted sachet plastic. These bottles essentially became bricks, which were used throughout the MRF building as walls. This MRF was different from the previous in that it lacked any machinery, yet made useful products that locked up plastic and prevented it from escaping into the environment.

Later that night, Evan and Sophie went to a networking event in Makati aimed at helping young entrepreneurs and innovators looking to make a difference. At the event, we met a few people from the Philippines who are looking to start their own businesses. For example, we met with a person who is making his own website that is able to give financial advice. We also met someone else who gave us a contact for a woman who collects and sorts plastic waste from around the Philippines.

On Wednesday, we began the day by visiting Sari-Cycling with Ric Alindayu, a former Cloop employee and current UPD researcher. He gave us a tour of the facility, and showed us some of the products they are able to make. They mainly use a compressor machine to make products like earrings and coasters. They also use a unique washing method using a washing machine to spin the plastic before using the compressor machine.

 

The last thing we did on Wednesday was visit Sentinel Upcycling’s facility, which will eventually be our buyer of shredded plastic. We first watched a presentation in the conference room of what Sentinel Upcycling does, and a brief history of the mother company Manly Plastics. We then got to talk with the President of Sentinel Upcycling, Jonathan Co. He talked about competition in the plastic industry in the Philippines and why so many startup companies focused on plastic recycling in the Philippines fail, and how we can steer clear of these common mistakes. He also answered all of our questions, and then gave us a tour of his massive facility. The facility had a CAD design room, injection molder making room, a waste recycling facility, and so much more.

The PlasTech team landed in Manila in the late afternoon on Saturday to kick off our fieldwork! The next morning we were able to meet Jill, Erwin, and our HEED students in person after a semester of Zoom meetings with them. After brunch, we caught a jeepney ride to the UPD Diliman campus and walked through their beautiful campus before we met back up with Jill to work through some of the questions regarding how PlasTech can exist within a UPD space and the logistics. 

This morning we met with Erwin where we brainstormed some different ideas about how to pitch our idea to universities as a show of internalization, which is something very important to universities here. He was able to give us contacts and a new pathway to go down regarding the office of the University of Quezon City. We later met with Tito from the FabLab at UPD which gained us a lot of insight regarding what a technical space could look like as well as learning more about the NSTP program that is university-wide. He also mentioned a professor in the material science department that is an NSTP advisor who would likely be interested in taking on this project as his own.  After this meeting, Lizzie and Rana attended a meeting with the Dean and Associate Deans from the College of Engineering regarding Creative Inquiry and the impact all of our teams are trying to accomplish here in the Philippines. 

While Lizzie and Rana were at the Dean’s meeting, Evan and Sophie focused on developing a Google doc of what the UPD’s role would be in this plastic recycling facility on campus. This doc covered who would run the facility, where it would be located, as well as why this relationship would be beneficial to both parties involved. We also emailed James Buño, Director of the Diliman Environmental Management Office to inquire about looking at the MRF on UPD’s campus, as well as organizing a meeting with him.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to getting in touch with the associate dean from the College of Engineering as well as Jill to move into motion how and where within UPD we can place our pilot facility and narrow down who would be responsible for the machinery as well as students and programs we can work with regarding the collection and running the facility itself. 

This week was a big week for PlasTech as we’re preparing for fieldwork! Early this week we finished our washing trials, which essentially were used to show which cleaning additives worked best for each different type of plastic. Baking soda, detergent, vinegar, and pure water would be used to see how well each cleaned the plastics. We tested these additives with sachet, PET, HDPE, and LDPE plastics, using a bucket and stick washing method. This method is very rudimentary but for good reason. We want this process to be easily replicable anywhere in the world so that our facilities can expand to all corners of the globe. Our washing trials were as follows: First, we’d fill two small buckets with water, and pour them into our larger mixing bucket. We would then measure out ⅓ cup of the additive we’d be testing, and then we’d add this additive to the water. We’d do this process for three total buckets because there would be three trials for each plastic-additive combo. A reading of the turbidity before adding plastic would be taken and recorded using the turbidimeter, and then 16 oz of shredded plastic would be added to each of the three buckets. Each bucket would be mixed for a minute and a half using long wooden sticks, and a mesh bag would be put over the top of the bucket at the conclusion of mixing. The bucket would then be poured into a smaller bucket in the sink, and the mesh bag would catch the plastic, allowing only the dirty solution to fall into the bucket inside the sink. Turbidity readings of the dirty solution would be taken and recorded. Using this process, it was found that detergent worked best for sachet and LDPE plastic while baking soda worked best for PET and HDPE plastic. Vinegar was easily the worst and was even worse than just using plain water for many of the trials.

Later this week, we were given the opportunity to meet with the Mandela Fellows which opened a lot of future doors. Highlighting one of the people, Sansan Kambire, from Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. We left the conversation with him having made a new connection and opening our eyes to plastic pollution problems outside of the Philippines. Besides this, we were also given advice from other Mandela Fellows to possibly create a youtube channel once we have a facility set up so others around the world can replicate what we are doing to create more change. Overall, the conversations with the Mandela Fellows were very helpful and insightful and left us excited for the future aspects of PlasTech. We also met with a few high school students from the Iacocca Entrepreneurial Program. Having them for a morning was helpful in allowing us to see where people who are just being introduced to the project have questions so we could address those in our future pitch and be prepared to answer future questions that are similar.

Because we are heading to the Philippines in a few days, this week was filled with meetings. We met with Khanjan and the other Philippines group to discuss travel logistics on Tuesday. We discussed what to bring, what to expect, UPD stuff, etc. On Friday we met with Khanjan again to discuss the specifics of our project’s fieldwork. Our plan for fieldwork is to first head to Resiklo, check out the available shredders, and then buy one that works for what we need. We will then meet with Marikina MRF + vacant site, maybe other locations, and try to find somewhere we can put the shredder and start a pilot facility. We need to get in writing the liability and financial logistics with this partner. If we cannot find an MRF or other space, we can set up a research facility in UPD. Another thing we want to accomplish is to figure out our collection methods. We will meet with Cloop and Plaf to check out their collection methods, look into collection bins, check out junk shops, and street sweeping. Overall, we want to keep an open mind to making new connections and see who the people we meet guide us to. Khanjan also highlighted the fact that we will be showing our website to several different people so we should update it and put more relevant information that relates to our project currently which is what we are working on before we leave for fieldwork.

This week we had the mountaintop summer experience press conference on Friday. We invited Ganesh, Brian, Professor String, and the HEED students. We made a three-minute presentation that covered Who we are, What our project is, Why it exists, What problem we are trying to solve, What methods and resources we are using, What accomplishments we have achieved so far this summer, Where we hope to be in one month / six months / five years. We split up the slides, added photos, and practiced running it with each other. At the conference, it went great! We were under 3 minutes and got many interesting questions from the audience.

Image 1: Stirring shredded sachet plastic so that it can become cleaner

Image 2: Straining the dirty solution from the cleaned, shredded plastic

Image 3: The turbidimeter setup used to analyze the turbidity of our dirty solutions

This week we did a multitude of things. One of the first things we did this week was to gather more plastic in order to have enough HDPE to complete our washing methods. We went around to local south Bethlehem cafes and stores to ask for their plastic waste. We visited Saxby’s, The Cup, and Toastique, with Saxby’s giving us the most plastic waste that we could use. Much of Saxby’s plastic waste was HDPE, which was exactly what we were looking for to finish our collection of plastic before washer testing began. We then had to sort through all the plastic waste that we had collected, and only held onto the HDPE plastic. We then shredded the HDPE plastic, and measured out how much HDPE we currently had. We had a little over three buckets of HDPE plastic, which was sufficient for our testing.

On Tuesday this week we finally received two of the standards needed to calibrate our turbidimeter so we can start our washing method testing. We have everything ready to go and created a process for testing that is the most efficient in order to get our trials complete within a day of testing. We are still waiting for the standard 10 NTU in order to calibrate our turbidimeter. We are confident that it should get delivered by end of day Friday so we can start and finish our testing within the day on Monday. We are looking forward to seeing testing through and finally finding some answers regarding the washing method we want to implement in our processing facility in Manila. 

On Wednesday, we had a meeting with Khanjan concerning fieldwork and our plans for the rest of the summer. Khanjan told us that instead of shipping our current shredder across the world, we should simply purchase a shredder in the Philippines using Creative Inquiry funds. So, we had to begin shopping around and looking for a proper shredder that we could use. We turned to our longtime partners, Resiklo Machinery Company, to inquire about possibly purchasing two of their cheaper shredders, and we received some videos from them showing the two machines in action. The “Mild Steel” shredder appeared to only work with 3D print material, and so this wouldn’t be appropriate for our work. However, the RPC-300 machine appeared to easily shred LDPE and PET plastic, and so we on Friday sent a follow-up email to Resiklo asking about its capabilities of shredding sachet plastic. They also informed us that there’s about a 2 – 4 week waiting period after purchasing before the shredder is ready if there’s no available stock. However, if there is stock, this waiting period is cut to only 2 – 4 days.

The rest of the week we worked on perfecting our press conference presentation since we have to deliver it during our week 5 league meeting. It went well and we received a lot of constructive criticism regarding the look and feel of our slides. We also were able to deliver our pitch under the three minutes we are allotted for. So moving forward we are going to add in a few more slides to be able to fully encapsulate exactly what we are doing and the impact we want to create within communities in Manila.

Image 1: From top left clockwise; sachet, PET, LDPE, HDPE

Image 2: Us at Saxby’s collecting plastic waste

This week, we focused on preparing for our washing experiment, and finalized any nuances in our procedure that could affect our testing. We started on Monday by shredding all the plastic we had collected over the past two weeks. We mainly focused on shredding the sachets, PET, HDPE, and LDPE, considering these are the four types of plastics that we will be using in our testing. We used the old shredder to do this work for us, and it worked perfectly fine. The only trouble we encountered was occasional jamming happening with PET or HDPE bottles that were made of very strong material. Putting the bottles in horizontally usually helped to cure these issues. Another issue encountered was the fact that the shredder heated up occasionally, which led to some issues. When shredding tough plastics like PET and HDPE, the motor would be working hard to shred these plastics, resulting in the metal box at the bottom heating up and leading to some minor smoking coming from the top of the shredder. Also, with some of the softer plastics, the motor would heat up, and cause the shredded plastic to melt, and clog up into a ball. This taught us that when operating the shredder, we should consistently shred for ~5 minutes, and then give the machine a 2 minute break. This ensures the most efficient shredding possible, and makes sure that the machine doesn’t heat up to too high of a temperature. By the end of our shredding, we had enough sachet, enough LDPE, almost enough PET, and nowhere near enough HDPE. HDPE is simply harder to come by, and is mostly only found in tiny bottle caps, therefore not providing us with enough HDPE. 

We then did a practice runthrough of our washing test to see what things we’d have to fix by the time we begin our testing. We used shredded sachets just because we had more than enough of this plastic available. When performing our test, we realized using 2 ounces of detergent may be too much, so we decreased the amount to 1 ounce. We also found that it’s extremely difficult to thoroughly clean the leftover shredded plastic that is stuck in the mesh filter, and so we decided that we won’t really try to get the mesh entirely clean as long as we’re testing with the same type of plastic, because then you’re technically not contaminating one type of plastic with another type of plastic. We also decided that we’ll make a cheese cloth lining around the drain plug to prevent any microplastics from going down the drain, therefore making our testing a bit more eco-friendly.

On Tuesday, we went around campus and visited some of the recycling bins. Some of these bins were labeled as “film collection”, and so we scavenged through these bins to find some LDPE. This is because although we believed we had enough LDPE, we only had exactly enough. We wanted to make sure we had a little extra to ensure that if there were any mess-ups, we had extra plastic available. We found a lot of LDPE, and went back to Mountaintop to shred the rest of this plastic film. We now only needed a little bit more PET and a lot more HDPE.

On Wednesday we received some more locally sourced HDPE and PET plastic, which we planned to shred on Thursday. On Wednesday, Professor String dropped off her turbidimeter for us. The turbidimeter is electric, and is very expensive and very accurate. It came with a few different test tubes that we could use during our testing. It also came with a manual that fully describes how to use the turbidimeter. However, the turbidimeter uses standards that are used to calibrate the instrument, and help provide the most accurate turbidity readings. For example, if you know the solution you’re testing has a turbidity reading slightly greater than 1.0 NTU, then make the turbidimeter read a standard solution that you know has 1.0 NTU, and calibrate to read that solution as 1.0 NTU. The turbidimeter can then use this as a standard to base future measurements off of. However, Professor String unfortunately didn’t have any available for us, and so we had to order turbidity standards to use. On Thursday, we tested the turbidimeter after giving it time to charge. We added water to a glass, and then mixed some dirty plastic in with the water. The turbidimeter did show that the dirty water was more turbid than the clean water, but it didn’t give accurate turbidity measurements. This is why we need the standards.

Image 1: Testing out using the turbidimeter with dirty water

Image 2: Shredding plastic using the shredder

This week our shredder arrived! The shredder arrived on Wednesday around noon, and was packaged in wood slabs that were nailed together. We used crowbars and other tools to pry the shredder from the packaging. Once opened, we noticed the cord to plug the shredder into an outlet had no plug. So, we asked Michael Moore for help, who is the head of the Lehigh woodshop in the C3 building. He helped us to find the correct plug we’d need, judging by the voltage, amp, and phase of the motor. He gifted us the supplies needed to attach a plug, and we were able to install this onto the end of the cord. Once this was done, we had to wheel the shredder outside to the outlet on the side of the C3 building. This is the only outlet that would be able to handle the shredder’s needs. However, the shredder was kept in place currently by pieces of metal that were bolted into the base below the shredder. So, tools had to be used to remove the bolts, and allow the shredder to be wheeled outside. The shredder was placed under an overhang attached to C3 just outside of the woodshop, so that it can be protected from rain. We then plugged the shredder into the outlet and it successfully turned on.

We ran into a little bit of a problem when trying to test the shredder and its capabilities. Our shredder worked with PET, just took a little longer than anticipated but when we first tested sachets it got stuck because of a plastic grocery bag. This made us realize it cannot break down soft plastics. After that realization and trying to figure the machine out on Wednesday we decided to go back to the drawing board to think about possible solutions. On Thursday we did more testing which led us to finding that we need to put the sachet plastic through the machine twice in order to get it into the size necessary. This took a lot longer than anticipated so our next step is to sharpen the blades on Friday and see if that makes a difference. If not, it might be something to do with the voltage. These are things we want to discuss with Micheal Moore from the woodshop with and if he has any ideas of how to make the shredder faster and more efficient. Our other option we have been discussing is replacing the blades with smaller blades since the blades in our shredder are larger than anticipated, which might be why it shreds much slower than we had originally thought. 

Another thing we have been focused on this week is the post-consumer plastic itself. We realized that we are not getting an influx of enough plastic to do 96 rounds of testing, even with the third collection bin. We contacted many lehigh people, including the office of sustainability, facilities, and the director of custodial affairs, Dan O’Brien, in regards to getting access to lehgigh’s recycling and being able to take some of their plastic. Dan said he can bring us 1-2 bags of PET and HDPE plastic in the next few days. 

Another issue with the plastic is the issue of LDPE and HDPE bags. Grocery bags are often made of HDPE, and many plastic bags that are clear are LDPE. They are both polyethylene, but have different melting points, so should not be recycled together. However, our buyer, sentinel upcycling, says that these can be mixed together, or not, it is up to us. We have decided to keep them separate, at least for the washing trials. The other problem with plastic film like plastic bags is that they often do not have marking indicating the number or type of plastic they are.

On Friday of last week, we met with Professor Gabrielle String from the Department of Environmental Engineering on zoom to discuss water filtration methods. She was EXTREMELY helpful, and was able to provide us with lots of information during our meeting. She told us that collecting rainwater is a valid method, but in doing so, we’d have to wait until after the first rainfall to begin collecting rainwater. The “First Flush” as it is called essentially has a lot of dirt and sticks, and so you don’t collect this water. However, the following storms bring clean water, meaning you can simply collect this rainwater and use it for washing without even needing to perform any filtration techniques. She also told us of various different methods that can be used to reuse rainwater during washing. Using alums, screening, and sand filtration are just a few of the techniques that Prof. String went over with us, with each having their upsides and downsides. Finally, Professor String was able to help us come up with a method for measuring the “cleanliness” of plastic. We told Professor String of our idea to use ImageJ. She said our idea could work, but she had a better idea. She introduced us to the idea of turbidity, which is essentially the cloudiness of a liquid. She told us about instruments used to measure turbidity, and that there are two main types: turbidity tubes and turbidimeters. Turbidity tubes are very cheap and provide relatively accurate measurements, while also being used mainly for fieldwork. Turbidimeters on the other hand are very expensive, but are extremely accurate (to two decimal places) and are used in lab settings. Professor String agreed to let us gain access to a turbidimeter within the next two weeks for our testing. 

When we weren’t working on doing actual shredding, we were focused on doing miscellaneous, smaller activities that still needed to be done. We began to set up the outline of our future research paper, and were able to make a structured table of contents that can help guide our writing. We then began to use our previous research to start writing the introduction and method sections of our research paper. We started identifying and sorting through our collected plastic. We were able to order a turbidity tube. Although we are going to be gaining access to a turbidimeter, the turbidity tube can be brought with us to the Philippines to perform fieldwork, and gain accurate measurements at our research facility. A log on Microsoft Excel was also created to help organize any data that we may obtain from our washing tests which we hope to begin next week.

On Friday, we tested the shredder even more, and noticed that despite crumbling up the PET bottles even more, the shredder would successfully cut the plastic, but into larger pieces. Even putting the plastic through a second time didn’t yield any smaller pieces. We came across a professor at the University of South Florida by the name of Thomas H. Culhane that specializes in eco-friendly research, and has a youtube video posted using our exact shredder. When he put PET bottles into his shredder, the shredder was able to successfully turn them into small pieces of shredded plastic. So, we decided to send him an email, asking some questions concerning how he uses the shredder, and what might be the issue with ours. We also asked him if he ever tested his machine with sachet plastic.

Image 1: Picture of our new shredder

Image 2: Work being done to the cord to add a plug to the end

Image 3: Shredded sachet plastic

Image 4: Shredded PET; notice how the pieces are still too large

 

 

 

 

This week’s primary focus was geared toward preparing our tests and experiments that we will be performing next week. These tests will be examining which washing method is the most effective, but we encountered some problems when developing this experiment. For one, we needed a way to quantify “cleanliness”. It’s easy to say that something “looks clean”, but just saying the shredded plastic looks clean isn’t necessarily scientific enough to write a research paper on. We looked into how we can quantify cleanliness and define which washing process is the best. We concluded that we will analyze the dirty spent water using ImageJ software. ImageJ is a program that allows you to import photos, and then use a number of different tools to gather statistical information based on that photo. ImageJ has a feature called “mean gray value”, which gives the average gray value of a certain selected area of a picture. The gray value can only be determined from a grayscale image, which is essentially when you take an image and make it in only shades of gray, according to the University of Edinburgh. Then, for each pixel in this grayscale image, the pixel has a gray value between 0 and 255. 0 means that the pixel is completely black, while 255 indicates the pixel is white. A perfect gray color would be somewhere in the middle. And in ImageJ, the mean gray value is simply the total gray values of all the individual pixels in your region of interest (ROI) divided by the total number of pixels in that ROI. So, we thought we could use ImageJ and mean gray value to find which washing method works the best for us. But how?

At the end of each washing method, we would strain the dirty water from the washing test, and add the dirty water to a cuvette. Once the solution is inside the cuvette, we’d put the cuvette inside a lightbox, a mechanism that simply makes a white background to put the cuvettes against. Once the cuvettes with the dirty solution are inside the lightbox, a photo would be taken of the cuvettes against the white side of the lightbox. The photo would then be imported into ImageJ, where the image would be turned into a grayscale image. Then, an ROI for each cuvette would be selected, and the size of this ROI would remain constant for consistency purposes. Once the area is selected, data showing the mean gray value for that region will appear in a chart. The mean gray value essentially shows the average gray value each pixel has within that ROI. Therefore, from the chart, we can determine which washing method worked best. If the mean gray value is very low (<50), this means the solution in the cuvette is extremely dirty, and so the washing method removed a lot of dirt and was therefore an efficient method. If the mean gray value is still relatively high (>125), then that washing method wasn’t very effective. The washing method combination that has the lowest average mean gray value, the lightest color, and therefore was the most effective when compared to the other methods.

For our washing methods we decided on using three different additives. We want to test their effectiveness on cleaning the dirty plastic best. These additives are vinegar, baking soda, and dawn dish soap. We completed extensive research regarding these three additives this week. Our findings from this research for vinegar turned out to be that it is the acetic acid that is contained within vinegar that allows for it to clean surfaces and get dirt dislodged from surfaces. When researching baking soda we found that it would be the most environmentally friendly additive option however it may not work as well as our other additives when dissolved in water, because it is most effective when in a paste because it is the slight abrasiveness of the product that allows for cleaning of surfaces. This will need to be proven within our testing trials and what ImageJ allows us to see numerically. Our third additive, Dawn Dish Soap, was the most credible when it came to finding information regarding the cleaning powers it possesses. We learned that it contains four different ingredients that function as surfactants, surfactants are what allow cleaning agents to remove dirt from the surface being cleaned. We learned that surfactants have two ends, one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic. The hydrophobic part which consists of hydrocarbon chains, loves oil and dirt but stays away from water. Surfactants work by organizing into micelle (sphere like shapes) with the hydrophilic ends being on the outside of the micelle and the hydrophobic ends being in the center protected from the water. The micelle is able to trap oil and dirt in the middle because the oil and dirt is attracted to the hydrophobic ends and this allows the dirt and oil to be lifted off of the surface and become suspended within the water. This suspension is known as emulsification of one liquid into another. With the oil and dirt being trapped in the micelle and the micelle being suspended in water it is easy to wash away the grime. From our fundamental research we are thinking that Dawn Dish Soap will be the most effective cleaning additive we will be using. However, we will not be able to see this until we start testing and using ImageJ to quantify our findings.  If we find Dawn Dish Soap as the most effective, we need to dive deeper into the environmental effects and how we can try to make our process more environmentally friendly. 

We also performed research into some other areas that we will need for our research paper. One area is an overall view of the worldwide plastic stream, as well as the differing types of plastic. The primary takeaway from the worldwide plastic stream research is that higher income families tend to produce a great ton more plastic than middle and lower income families. This makes sense because as your wealth increases, you tend to purchase more packaged products, increasing your daily plastic pollution. However, throughout the past 100 years or so, family income has begun to shift, and the middle class has been growing. This means that since incomes are increasing, plastic pollution will also continue to increase unless drastic changes in social norms concerning plastic occur. We also then performed research on the types of plastics we will be using in our experiments. We decided that we’d be collecting and using sachet, PET, HDPE, and LDPE plastic for our experiments, mainly because these are the most common plastics. From our research, we already knew that sachet plastic isn’t really a type of plastic, but rather is a combination of a few different types of plastics. This is why many companies won’t accept sachet plastic, as you can’t really sort sachets. PET is a very strong type of plastic that is used mainly for beverage bottles. PET can also be separated into clear and colored PET. HDPE and LDPE happen to come from the same family of plastics, polyethylene (Hence the “PE” at the end of the acronyms). HDPE has an “HD” because it is called “High Density Polyethylene”. HDPE is very rigid, and is used for bottle caps, as well as milk cartons. LDPE on the other hand is “Low Density Polyethylene”, and is therefore much more soft, and is used in grocery bags.

 

Image 1: Some of the trash collected from our fellow Mountaintop colleagues that we will use for our tests

Image 2: Some of the washer supplies that we will be using next week

Image 3: An image of what the Lightbox should look like with solutions inside the cuvettes