Overview
The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a call to action for all countries - whether poor, rich or middle-income - to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. The goals reflect the fact that poverty eradication must go hand in hand with strategies to promote economic growth and address a range of social needs, including education, health, social protection and employment opportunities, while addressing climate change and environmental protection1.
Our project SUPERB is committed to the development of more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly plastic degradation technologies, as well as the recycling of plastic degradation monomers into bacterial cellulose that can be utilized in scenarios such as daily skin care. Therefore, we believe that the concept of SUPERB fits well with the vision of the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda in the field of environmental protection, and that it is possible to utilize synthetic biology as a tool to demonstrate its value in the degradation of plastics, the rational recycling of waste, and the improvement of the ecological environment. Focusing on the five Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we have planned and carried out relevant human practices such as science popularization for all ages, scavenging and running for river and bank protection actions, and plastic bottle swapping activities for SDG 3 – Health and Well-being, SDG 4 – Quality Education, SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, and SDG 17 – Promoting Goals. In addition, innovative technologies for the bioconversion of plastic degradable monomers in experiments and our comparative accounting of carbon emissions have also had a positive impact on targets such as Goal 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and Goal 13 – Climate Action. More so, the From Problem Awareness to Action has overall long-term benefits for the achievement of multiple sustainability goals. We have also analyzed the shortcomings of the project and strive to achieve further improvements in the future.
Part 1 Core
Goal 3
—Francis Bacon
1. Why do we choose SDG 3?
Good health is essential for sustainable development and Agenda 2030 reflects the complexity and interconnectedness of the two. It considers emerging challenges such as threats to climate and the environment. Universal health coverage is integral to achieving SDG 3. Good health and well-being2 . With plastic products playing an increasingly wide role in our daily lives, China produces as much as 3.35×10^8 t of plastics annually, but only 20% of the waste plastics are incinerated or recycled. A large amount of waste plastics enters the environment through various pathways, decomposes and transforms into microplastics, and travels along the food chain, causing potential human health hazards 3. From the results of current studies, microplastics enter the human body mainly through food and the respiratory tract and accumulate in the lungs and gastrointestinal tissues. Smaller sized microplastics can be distributed to tissues and organs through the circulatory system. Laboratory-based toxicological experiments have shown that microplastics not only pose a threat to cell membrane integrity, immune stress, gut microbial communities and energy metabolism, but may also adversely affect the reproductive system. Studies have reported that high concentrations of microplastics have a 7.7-fold correlation to human disease and can even cause death 4. Therefore, there is an urgent need to solve the problem of plastic disposal, and we believe that our SUPERB can solve this problem, so we decided to focus on one subgoal of SDG 3 which is 3.9 Significantly reduce the number of deaths and illnesses caused by hazardous chemicals as well as air, water, and soil pollution by 2030. Aims to indirectly reduce the number of illnesses and deaths caused by microplastics by reducing the impact of microplastics on human health at source through biological treatment of plastics and inhibiting the pathways by which plastics break down into microplastics.
2. What positive long-term impacts did our projects have？
Traditional plastic treatment methods have the problems of low degradation efficiency, strict degradation conditions and low recycling rate of degradation products.The bio-enzymatic degradation method we adopt can degrade plastics into TPA and EG, and ultimately enable the degradation products to form bacterial cellulose BC under the action of biotransformation. This process on the one hand, avoids the accumulation of EG which is toxic to the living organisms, and on the other hand, degrades the plastics, which directly curtails the decomposition of the plastics to produce microplastics as a pathway, and achieves the goal of reducing the flow of microplastics to human beings, and is better able to It can better solve the threat of microplastics and high concentration of EG to human health.
3. How can we achieve the SDGs？
3.1 Nursing home publicity
Volunteer activities in the homes for the elderly are not only about respecting and loving the elderly, but also about communicating with the elderly and learning about the plastic products they come into contact with in their daily lives, and through popularization of science, teaching older people to use plastic correctly, such as not using hot water in plastic cups, so that they can have a green and healthy life in their twilight years.
3.2 Invite the children to the lab
Through this activity, we led the children into the laboratory and taught them about plastic pollution and microorganisms in life, so as to make them aware of the potential hazards of plastic products to the environment and health in their daily lives, so that they can reduce the use of disposable plastic products in their daily lives, and develop more environmentally friendly and healthy living habits. The children also were guided to learn about the role of microorganisms in their lives and how to prevent diseases through good hygiene habits, helping children to establish healthy behaviours for disease prevention.
4. Action Feedback
On the third day after the children’s lab activity, the bacteria cultured after sampling could be clearly observed with the naked eye, and we invited all the participating children to come to the site to observe the comparison of the colonies before and after washing their hands. One of the children said, “Through the hands-on experience of the science experiment, I not only learned about plastic pollution and microorganisms, but also learned health-related scientific principles in practice. By observing the growth of microorganisms sampled from my hands before and after washing them, it was very intuitive to understand the importance of washing hands diligently for health, and I will definitely form better health habits in my daily life in the future. ”We are very honored that our action can bring him this kind of thinking, and can help him to develop good habits.
Goal 4
—Karl Theodor Jaspers
1. Why do we choose the SDG 4?
Education is the cornerstone of the development of human society, and nurturing human talent is an essential tool for social progress. Over the past decade, access to education at all levels has increased dramatically, but there is still a long way to go to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal IV. According to the latest data released by UNESCO on September 18, 2023, there will be an additional 6 million out-of-school children globally between 2021 and 2023, bringing the total to 250 million, “a result that demonstrates that there is a long way to go to achieve education-related Sustainable Development Goal 4” 5. In addition, the new challenges of the post-pandemic era and the continuation of armed conflicts in multiple regions in the last two years have had a profound impact on the development of education in the global perspective.
We are concerned that for a comprehensive and equitable education, there are some aspects that are easily neglected and have a weak focus, such as children with disabilities and students living in poverty. At the same time, “synthetic biology” and “microplastics” seem to be terms that are only known to professionals, but not to the general public. For example, StartUs Insights’ report, “Exploring the Top 10 Trends in Synthetic Biology by 2024,” analyzes a sample of data from more than 700 companies and explores the trends in synthetic biology by 2024. The results show that synthetic biology is a fast-growing field, but it may require more public awareness and understanding in order to take full advantage of these emerging technologies6. Based on this, we would like to put in place relevant actions to address the two key questions above, and for Goal IV we focus on two specific objectives, 4.7 and 4.A.
2. What positive long-term impacts did our projects have？
We hope that our actions can truly impact more age groups and different populations. Through our popularization campaign, we hope to make as many people as possible aware of the harmful effects of microplastics in their daily lives, and to establish the habit of recycling plastic products in a rational way. The “plastic war” can only be resolved quickly when consumption reduction and reuse are truly accepted by more people, and even further formed into unconscious habits! In addition, our actions are playing the role of interest enlightenment, and our publicity audience has learned the simple principles of synthetic biology and come into contact with the relevant experimental operations because of such actions, and we have promoted the public’s understanding of synthetic biology to a greater extent.
3. How can we achieve the SDG 4？
On the university campus, different faces from all over the world stop by our booth, and we and they, with different colors and nationalities, are standing together to learn about iGEM and synthetic biology. We truly feel the significance of knowledge and education - there should never be a barrier between people or geography.
3.1 Hearing-impaired children
We went into a special education school to give a popularization talk on plastics to the hearing-impaired children - clarifying the grading and hazards of plastics, explaining the various types of recycling methods of plastics, and combining interactive games to assist the students to better understand the classroom knowledge and help them to establish the concept of reasonable recycling of plastics products and the green development concept of environmental protection.
Hearing-impaired children have a little difficulty in expressing their language, but they also enthusiastically expressed the use of plastic science knowledge in their own way - they and our volunteer team members used plastic bags to create colorful flower pictures, and experienced and practiced the understanding of the reuse of plastic products through practical actions.
Some time after the presentation for hearing impaired children, we contacted the head of the hearing rehabilitation center and gave him a feedback consultation. Through the dialogue with the person in charge, we learned that the content of our presentation has certain educational significance for their children, and every child likes our presentation form very much. And have a certain understanding of the content of the lecture, understand the knowledge of plastic and its pollution. In addition, our handcraft links also stimulate children’s creativity in waste plastic products, they can use disposable gloves and other plastic products for hand-making in daily life to achieve secondary use.
3.2 Carrying Out Cloud Classroom
In the post epidemic era, the application of cloud classroom in the field of education is becoming more and more extensive and in-depth. Even though we were separated by thousands of miles, we were still ready with full of sincerity and enthusiasm to explain to the children the grading and hazards of plastic products, as well as reasonable recycling methods.
At the end of the Plastic Knowledge Cloud Classroom, we set up an interactive quiz, and the children actively and enthusiastically spoke, absorbing more than 90% of the classroom science knowledge, and showing a high degree of interest in synthetic biology-related science knowledge. This class fully enhanced the children’s understanding of the hazards of plastic products and the environmental awareness of recycling.
3.3 Science picture books
We conducted extensive research to understand the recycling paths of discarded plastic bottles, and drew and formed the “The Plastic Bottle’s Rising Rebirth” science picture book to show the detailed recycling process of discarded plastic bottles in the environment, including landfill, incineration, and reuse, with the aim of illustrating the different degrees of pollution of the three paths, and advocating for a greener, cleaner, more efficient and economical plastic recycling methods and degradation technologies.
In the publicity activities such as book donations for poverty alleviation and the SUPERB project social media, we push the illustrated maps in both paper and electronic media to expand the scope of the science audience as much as possible, reflecting our efforts to upgrade the construction of full-coverage educational facilities and provide a more inclusive learning atmosphere.
3.4 Production and publication of science videos
We have produced and released a series of thematic videos on social media, including the history of plastics, the relationship between plastics and food, the hazards of plastics, and the classification of plastics, in the hope that more people will learn about the relevant scientific knowledge and recognize the innovative value of the SUPERB project.
We actively utilize the Internet platform of the Internet of Everything to promote science popularization. On the one hand, it helps to break through the geographical limitations and transmit the concept of sustainable development to a wider group of educated people; on the other hand, our form of science popularization also facilitates the audience to search for further relevant knowledge and interact with each other on the Internet platform, which is extremely rich in education resources, and we have deeply integrated ourselves into this highly efficient education facility, and we strive to increase the participation and impact of science education.
Goal 6
—Golgi
1. Why do we choose the SDG 6?
A quarter of the world’s population faces “extremely high” water scarcity stress, and all regions have annual renewable water utilization rates of more than 80 percent. With the development of society, the water used for human production and living is increasing, and at the same time, water pollution caused by various reasons is becoming more and more serious, which aggravates the reduction of available water, resulting in the shortage of water resources, and then unable to provide water and environmental sanitation for residents in some areas. Today, more than 2.2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water. The health and safety situation remains grim 7. Among them, microplastics pollution is one of the main factors causing water pollution and has been listed as the second biggest problem in the field of environmental and ecological science research 8. To this end, we would like to focus on the following two sub-objectives: 6.3 By 2030, improve water quality by: Reduce pollution, eliminate the dumping of waste, reduce to a minimum the discharge of hazardous chemicals and materials, halve the proportion of untreated wastewater, significantly increase global waste recycling and safe reuse and 6.b Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management to provide our solutions to this problem and support local environmental management, Make our move.
2. What positive long-term impacts did our projects have？
In our experiment, a strain with high expression of plastic-degrading enzyme was constructed by using a machine learning method, so that PET can be effectively degraded harmlessly in the environment. To a certain extent, it can prevent the transformation process from plastic to microplastic, and provide certain solutions for water pollution problems, so our project is of great significance for achieving Goal 6. In addition, our publicity group has also carried out some activities related to water environment treatment, such as riparian garbage cleaning. While we hope that our actions can reduce plastic pollution along rivers, we also hope that our actions can affect more people and lead more people to participate in water environment protection. Taken together, these contributions contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals and to a cleaner, safer and sustainable water and sanitation environment for all.
3. How can we achieve the SDG 6?
3.1 Measure the microplastic content of each water body
In order to understand the pollution status of microplastics in water environment in different areas more clearly, we hope to find an experimental method that can simply measure the content of microplastics in water. In order to increase the authenticity and universality of the data, we sampled and tested water samples from multiple sources and compared the results to explore the water pollution situation in different areas.
3.2 Scavenging run
By measuring the content of microplastics in the water body, we found that the river body near the school is seriously polluted, so we plan to take some actions to improve the water environment. Therefore, we carried out the activity of “collecting wasteland and running” to protect the river bank, started running close to the riverside road, and picked up the garbage along the road.
3.3 Yangtze River Shoal Cleanup Campaign
Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, Wuhan is a veritable “river city”. And with the rapid economic development and population growth, the Yangtze River coast has gradually become a favorite activity site. However, the increasing flow of people along the river will also have an impact on the beach environment, and the plastic waste river banks will obviously increase. Therefore, our team went to a river beach and cleaned the white garbage nearby, hoping to call more people to participate in the protection of water environment through some small actions.
Through waste collection and beach plastic cleaning activities, we conducted on-site investigation on the status of plastic pollution in different waters, and took practical actions to clean it. Through our efforts, the amount of garbage on the shore of the water has been significantly reduced. At the same time, in the process of collecting garbage, many passers-by were attracted by our actions. We passed on our environmental protection ideas and introduced our projects to them, bringing synthetic biology to the public’s eyes. Through this series of activities, we have contributed to the protection of water environment, and also raised the public’s attention to the water environment.
Goal 12
—Nelson Mandela
1. Why do we choose the SDG 12?
Most (36%) of plastic production is used for plastic packaging, 46% of plastic waste to landfill, 22% to waste, 17% to incineration, 15% were recycled, with less than 9% of plastic waste recycled after loss9. We see the plastic disastrous impact on economy and environment, plastic processing industry is one of the economic benefit under the lowest industry, usually plastic products will only in a short time disposable become garbage into the recycling station or landfill, most of the plastic is through incineration or landfill, and in the process of incineration or landfill affected by the environment, such as incineration process, unable to achieve complete incineration conditions, plastic is buried by soil, the lower plastic contact the sunlight, these will make the degradation process cannot continue, degradation is limited, but also can produce a large number of microplastics. Even if a small part is recycled, the degradation process requires high temperature and high pressure conditions, the equipment investment is large, and the recovery cost is high. This means that even if we try to take the existing measures, plastic will still haunt us.
The subject of our study, PET, is a widely used plastic found in products such as beverage bottles and food packaging. The widespread use of plastic products, most of which can not be recycled and the energy consumption of recycling treatment is harsh, which has an immeasurable impact on the economy and the environment. In order to solve these problems, reduce the energy consumption and conditions of degradation, and recycle PET efficiently and low energy is the key. We believe that our SUPERB can provide this. We have therefore decided to focus on the two sub-targets of Sustainable Development Goal 12, 12.4 By 2020, to achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycles and substantially reduce their emissions to air, water and soil, in accordance with an agreed international framework. To minimize its adverse effects on human health and the environment 12.5 By 2030, significantly reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse. Although the former is already on the agenda for 2020, we believe that our efforts can still keep it on track and make progress.
2. What positive long-term impacts did our projects have?
SUPERB it tries to degrade PET under 30℃ and neutral conditions and turn the degradation products into bacterial cellulose through a series of actions, realizing the recycling of plastic green economy. Bacterial cellulose, a magical substance, can be used in wound dressing, artificial skin, tissue engineering stent and so on in the medical field. In the food industry, it can be used to make food packaging materials, food additives, and as a stabilizer and thickener of food. Even in the electronics industry: the high porosity and good conductivity of bacterial cellulose can enable its potential applications in electronic devices as insulating materials or flexible electronic substrates. In automotive manufacturing, bacterial cellulose has the potential to be used to make automotive parts because of their lightweight and strength properties.
Our goal is to degrade plastics efficiently and at low energy, to increase the amount of plastic waste that is recycled and used, to recover and economically recycle the products of plastic degradation, and to encourage others to find ways to recycle plastics sustainably.
3. How can we achieve the SDG 12？
3.1 Exchange flowers for plastic bottles
People stay for a moment, with the plastic bottles in their hands for a beautiful flowers, advocate people to bring their own cups, instead of buying bottled water, fully show our project concept of reducing plastic pollution from the perspective of reducing environmental costs, to create a better home.
People have fully recognized our activities, expressed praise for our project concept, and said that our activities are of great environmental significance.
3.2 Plastic art (small crafts, bottle cap paintings, plastic clothes…)
We have collected plastic waste for recycling and transformation, using the plastic that should be discarded after one-time use into handicrafts, we hope to call on people to realize the recycling of plastic, reduce plastic pollution, and promote the efficient use of waste resources.
Goal 17
1. Why do we choose the SDG 17?
Common development and win-win cooperation. With the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, exchanges and cooperation have become particularly important. From president Xi Jinping in 2013 in Moscow institute of international relations first put forward human destiny community, to 2015 in the seventieth session of the UN general debate “five one” the overall framework, to 2017 at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva put forward the construction of “five world” overall goal, the connotation of human destiny community concept deepening development10. Goal 17 focuses on encouraging multiple exchanges and cooperation to creating effective partnerships between different regions, occupations and ages. We realized that it was not sustainable with our strength alone, and that our project should be an open garden. We are eager to get inspiration in the communication and cooperation with the society and other iGEM teams to reflect the sustainable development of the project. Therefore, we actively work with experts, people and other iGEM teams to promote the establishment of effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships.
2. What positive long-term impacts did our projects have?
We have exchanges and cooperation throughout the whole project, hoping to draw all kinds of favorable information from the society and iGEM community to enrich our projects, and hope that our projects can bring value to the society. In communication and cooperation, we understand the field of synthetic biology, internalize in the heart and externalize in action. Together, we work to contribute to the development of synthetic biology to create a more sustainable future.
3. How can we achieve the SDG 17?
To achieve this goal, we build friendly partnerships with experts, the public, and the iGEM community to encourage everyone to contribute to the plastic degradation problem and to promote the sustainability of the project. We interviewed many experts or teachers and actively participated in various communication meetings in the iGEM community. We discussed how to more effectively promote the efficient degradation of plastic and how to widely publicize our projects. In the course of communication, they put forward many valuable suggestions and affirmed the sustainability of our project.
3.1 Build partnerships with experts and the public
In order to make our project go smoothly, from subject selection, background checks, stakeholders to development prospects, we always communicate with experts and the public throughout the whole process.(see more in:https://2024.igem.wiki/hbut-china/human-practices/)
3.2 The Open Congress on Synthetic Biology
During the conference, our team members actively sought advice from teachers and experts and communicated with other teams. We have learned that we should carry out targeted human practice activities with project characteristics, and actively use various online resources to carry out publicity and education activities. In order to fully implement this good suggestion, we launched a series of activities to the public by making use of network resources and combined with the characteristics of our own projects. For example, We conducted an online survey to understand the public’s awareness of plastic; we published popular videos about plastics on TikTok platform to understand the plastics around us; we conducted two cloud classes for children in Hongan County, Hubei Province, to popularize the knowledge about plastics and microbes; we also created HBUT-China’s WeChat official account to tell the public what we have done for the sustainable development of the project. We will humbly accept good proposals and implement them. We believe that only real action can be conducive to the sustainable development of the project.
3.3 Online communication meeting with SZPU-China
In this exchange, we have reached a cooperation. Our project with SZPU-China has a common sustainability topic: human health. In view of this topic, we further conducted online communication and decided to jointly shoot a charity video with the characteristics of each team project and integrating human health.
3.4 Conference of China iGEMer Community
In this conference, many teams shared their projects. The judges expressed a strong interest in the machine learning section of the project. The advantages of convenience and accuracy make machine learning more and more widely used in the field of synthetic biology, and it also plays a huge role as one of the key links of mutating plastic-degrading enzymes in this project. Moreover, in communication with other teams studying plastic degradation, we found many similarities and differences in experimental designs. For example, the common point is that both use enzymatic solution, the chassis cells used by us are Pichia yeast, and many other teams use Escherichia coli. These commonalities and opposite sex make us think about what we can learn from other teams and where the advantages of our project can be reflected. In the process of communication, we humbly sought advice and actively sought help from other teams, such as how to test the products and other issues. We are also willing to help other teams solve problems, such as providing inclusion solutions to the iGEM team of Xiamen University. In order to pull into the partnership between the teams, all the teams studying plastic degradation have set up WeChat communication groups to facilitate communication at any time.
3.5 Synbio Challenges
In this exchange, experts discussed the development and bright future of synthetic biology. At the same time, we are also aware of our own shortcomings, such as the principle of machine learning, and the modified expression of bacterial cellulose is our blind spot. After the game, we explored and learned for these blind spots. The machine learning Mutcompute algorithm we used uses 19,000 sequence-balanced proteins as a training set to learn the local chemical microenvironment of amino acids to identify amino acid sites to be optimized in proteins. However, regarding the modified expression of bacterial cellulose, we know that different modified expression of bacterial cellulose yields bacterial cellulose with different functions.
3.6 Building the future with unity (2024 iGEMer Central China Regional Exchange Conference)
In this exchange meeting, the judges were very interested in our project. When they mentioned our final transformation product, bacterial cellulose, they said that it was a key point of the sustainable development of the project. At the same time, we also conducted experimental communication with HUBU-China team, and we obtained problem solutions related to experimental data processing and molecular docking.
Part 2 Derivative
Goal 9
In addition to the influence of SUPERB on all aspects mentioned above, we think it is also necessary to explore the connection between it and industrial production. In the later stage of the experiment, we tried to synthesize bacterial cellulose, which is a kind of macromolecular polysaccharide, from terephthalic acid, a product of plastic degradation, and ethylene glycol by means of biotransformation. We contacted a teacher from the School of Economics and Management at our university, Mr. Zhang, to learn about the impact of bacterial cellulose on industrial production. And we do all this to prove that SUPERB can promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and help promote sustainable development in developing countries. Through the meeting with Mr. Zhang, we learned that bacterial cellulose has shown broad application prospects in many fields, and the current market demand for it shows a strong growth trend. However, due to its high production cost, large-scale production and application are limited. Mr. Zhang also pointed out that SUPERB not only helps solve environmental problems by converting plastic degradation into bacterial cellulose, but also produces high value-added products. As we explain in SDG12, by achieving environmentally sound management of waste plastics, transforming them into raw materials for products of industrial demand, minimizing their adverse effects and actively contributing to SDG9. We hope that the new technology of converting PET enzyme degradation products into BC researched by this team can provide developing countries with new opportunities for technological innovation and industrial development, so that they can make use of local renewable resources to realize the large-scale production and application of BC, thus promoting economic growth and enhancing their competitiveness in the global market. Thus achieving 9.5. In all countries, particularly developing countries, strengthening Strengthen scientific research and upgrade technological capacity in the industrial sector, including by 2030, by encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development personnel per 1 million people, as well as increasing public and private research and development expenditures and 9.b supporting domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries, including by providing an enabling policy environment, To achieve industrial diversification and increase the added value of commodities these two sub-goals.
Goal 13
Climate change can pose a major threat to global ecosystems, human health, and economic stability, which is why the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 emphasizes the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing resilience to climate-related disasters. Reductions in emissions are necessary to keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and they must be cut by nearly half by 2030 11. One of the main challenges in the arduous process of carbon reduction is plastic pollution, which causes significant environmental damage by releasing harmful emissions during production and disposal. Our project SUPERB is partly in line with the SDG 13 concept and focuses on the efficient degradation of PET using enzymatic processes. By developing this biocatalytic method, we aim to innovate a sustainable solution to alleviate the plastic waste problem and reduce the carbon footprint of traditional plastic disposal.
After we accounted for the relevant quantities in the experimental process, SUPERB produces only 52% of the carbon emissions of traditional incineration in the process of plastic degradation. If we expand the laboratory perspective to the global perspective - the global production of bottle-grade PET has exceeded 30 million tons in 2023 12, corresponding to the production of the same huge equivalent of discarded PET products, the most commonly used treatment methods for its direct incineration pyrolysis or recycling and reuse. In current higher recycling systems, crushing and reforming of degraded plastic materials is one of the main recycling methods, but these degraded plastic materials are still ultimately subject to incineration, pyrolysis, or other complete degradation methods. SUPERB’s enzyme digestion method undoubtedly offers an innovative and environmentally friendly pathway to reduce carbon emissions by up to 52% for this cause. This aligns with the broader goals of SDG 13 - our efforts to combat global climate change - and is an innovation that contributes to a more resilient and sustainable future.
Part 3 Action for multiple goals
Realizing that a problem exists is clearly the starting point for thinking about how to move forward in solving it. In our continuous efforts to achieve the SDGs, we have implemented a series of activities that are logically linked, following the logical relationship from problem awareness to action, and in the process of taking positive action, we have made a holistic impact on a number of goals, including Goal 4 - Quality Education, Goal 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation, Goal 14 - Submerged Organisms, and Goal 15 - Terrestrial Organisms.
Measurement of Microplastics in Water Bodies
In order to gain a preliminary understanding of the prevalence of microplastics in daily life scenarios, we conducted extensive literature searches, communicated fully with our environmental program instructors, designed experimental protocols, and ultimately adopted the Nile Red Staining Method to measure the distribution of microplastics in water bodies from different sources.
Our water samples were collected and tested in four provinces, including Hubei, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Shandong, and the types of water samples included natural water bodies of rivers and lakes, civil tap water and bottled mineral water, etc. In order to obtain more accurate and generalized results, we set up multiple parallel controls for each group of water samples and selected multiple fields of view for each group of water samples under the same magnification parameters. In order to obtain more accurate and generalized results, we set up multiple parallel controls for each group of water samples, and selected multiple fields of view for fluorescence counting under the same magnification parameters of the fluorescence microscope for each group of water samples. It was determined that microplastics are commonly found in water that people come into contact with in their daily lives, even in standardized filtered tap water or strictly treated mineral water.
Integration of education and popularization of science
We have a more scientific and intuitive basis for the prevalence of microplastic distribution in water bodies in the process of education and popularization of science since then. We present real microscopic imaging and data to make people realize that the microplastic threat can penetrate into almost all water use scenarios of life, which greatly helps to deepen the public’s awareness of plastics reduction and reasonable recycling in the process of realizing the Sustainable Goal 4 - Quality Education.
Sanitation Industry Research
After visually determining the presence of microplastics in water bodies, we focused on the real practitioners and conducted research and interviews with grassroots sanitation workers along river banks. We learned that preventing plastic bags, mineral water bottles, milk tea cups and other plastic waste from falling into rivers and lakes is one of their main tasks, and the water environment protection department in the research area has also set up a special river patrol duty system, aiming to strengthen the protection and supervision of river and lake shores, hoping to completely realize the shoreline without exposed garbage and litter, and to choke off the sources of pollution into the water body, so as to enhance the cleanliness of the waters from the source.
Scavenging run - On-campus Departure
From the detection of microplastics in natural water bodies to the research of related industries, we really saw the wide circulation and general distribution of plastic pollution after entering the natural environment, and deepened our understanding of the importance of river and bank protection in the actual industry. So, we decided to take action from where we can - to carry out the action of scavenging along the river on campus. During the jogging, we bent down to pick up again and again, and found that 90% of the waste found along the way were mineral water bottles, takeaway bags, milk tea cups and other kinds of plastic products, and some of the joggers also went down through the safety ladder many times to pick up the waste along the river next to the low bank. This scavenging activity made us realize more intuitively that: the application of plastic products in our life is so common; plastic waste is so easy to stay in the environment, after a series of actions to break down into small fragments, it is very likely to be pervasive in the air, water, and soil, and then with the food chain to gradually pass the accumulation…
But in fact, each of us can become a “scavenger” in our lives - every time we refuse to use disposable products, every time we choose paper or bamboo products, every time we bend down to pick up on the road and bet on the right kind of garbage cans… One day-to-day action after another, you may be able to piece together the possibility of the gradual reduction of microplastics in the environment, and a beautiful picture of eco-friendliness, greenness and sustainability.
Broader, long-term river and bank protection initiatives
Based on the positive results of the school’s Scavenger Hunt, we felt that a substantial impact on the SDGs needed to be focused on broader, long-term river and riparian protection actions. In order to make further positive change, our team members and science educators have traveled to more rivers and lakes - we have cleaned up plastic waste along the Baishazhou riverbank in Wuhan, along the Wushan Lake in Huanggang, along the Yingshan River in Suizhou, and along the Shu River in southeastern Shandong Province, to name a few places. In the future, we will establish a more organized and regular action to protect rivers and banks, and we expect more and more people to become one of us. We will take more substantial actions to prevent plastic pollutants from entering natural water bodies or remaining in terrestrial soil for a long period of time, which will cause serious harm to clean water, underwater organisms and plants along the shoreline, and contribute to the realization of the long-term benefits of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6-Clean Water, 14-Underwater Organisms, and 15-Terrestrial Organisms.
Part 4 Negative impacts
After doing the current series of work, we have come to realize that we should not only bury our heads in implementation, but also look up and reflect on it, summarize the shortcomings, and hope to rectify and improve them in the future. For the actions we have taken, we can not boast, we must be objective, there are still a lot of things we have not done enough, there are also many stakeholders to put forward suggestions and questions to us, so we summarize them here.
At present, for SDG 3 and SDG 6, during our interviews, there are some people who think that our project does not have a close connection with the society, and that it is extremely difficult to put it into social production, and that it is difficult to help these two SDGs in a real sense. Take Prof. Leng Yifei as an example, he questioned whether we can expand the scenario of plastic degradation to daily life instead of just limiting it to the lab. Our experiments currently only focus on how to efficiently degrade low-crystallinity (~8%) PET plastics using biological methods and are still lacking for the degradation of high-crystallinity (30-50%) PET plastics. Although there are more mature physicochemical and other methods for treating plastics with high crystallinity, it is still a problem that has not yet been well solved. Although the biological method is less mature, the conditions are harsh, and this project only degrades specially ordered films with low crystallinity, it has certain limitations, and the type of plastic targeted is even more limited to PET. However, we would like to say that the transition from laboratory to application field has always been our endeavor, and we hope that we can be inspired by this basic research we have done to provide our contribution to the real market use.
Regarding the activities we did for some of the SDGs, the teachers and the managers who were involved in the activities also raised some questions about whether our activities would cause panic among some of the people. Regarding SDG 3, Health and Well-being, although we have found that there are studies in the literature that confirm that microplastics pose a threat to human health, popularizing these concepts among the general public will inevitably lead to panic. Some people may just think that using plastics is a high-risk behavior and should be banned. However, plastics have become such an important part of people’s daily lives that it would certainly be unrealistic for us to advocate a ban on their use so far. This is also not our original intention, our original intention is not to cause panic, but to popularize the knowledge of plastics, so that the general public can objectively understand the status quo and harm of plastic pollution, and call on everyone to rationally dispose of plastics, to reduce the use of single-use plastics, and to use more biodegradable and recyclable plastics, and together with us to turn plastics into treasures.
References
Footnotes
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Sustainable development goals: United Nations Development Programme. UNDP. (n.d.). ↩
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Ying Zhu, Miao Cao, Jingyang Luo, Qin Zhang, Jiashun Cao. Environmental impact behavior of microplastics and its distribution in China [J]. Environmental Science Research, 2019, 32 (9): 1437-1447. DOI: 10.13198/j.issn.1001-6929.2019.07.04 ↩
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Research Progress on Pollution Characteristics and Health Risk of Human Microplastics Mindong Ma 1, Yangchen Zhao 1, Long Zhu 1,Weiping Wang 2, Yulin Kang 1, state Key Laboratory of Environmental Benchmarking and Risk Assessment, China Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012; 2. Shandong Weifang Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, Weifang 261061) ↩
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https://www.unesco.org/zh/articles/jiaokewenzuzhiquanqiuxinzeng-600-wanshixueertong ↩
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https://www.startus-insights.com/innovators-guide/synthetic-biology-trends/ ↩
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United Nations World Water Development Report2024 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000388950_chi ↩
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Chinese Academy of Sciences, 《Microplastics Found in Freshwater Environments, Impacts Not Only Aquatic Life》 ↩
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SDG-Explainers-Plastic-Pollution.pdf (un.org) ↩
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https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/zh/climate-change-2/ ↩
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http://www.cfachina.org/industrydynamics/mediaviewoffuturesmarket/202402/t20240201_67070.html ↩