Interim Presentation For Part 1

Ahseek Naseeb
Nov 6, 2020
4 min read

Updated: Nov 9, 2020

Well this is it for part one of TNT, my interim presentation went pretty well, I didn't get too much bad comments or questions about my topic. The assessor however told me that I could try to arrange the objects from my observation better for the audience because there is a lot of things that she tends to forget is made of plastic and that could be a way to showcase those products and remind people. She also said I could try improving my layout and the colors I used. Other than that she also gave me tips on how I could bring this project on a next level which is not something I might be able to do now as a student but it was pretty insightful.

Interim Presentation

Final Infographic

Written Components

Wider Context

The world knows how plastic pollutes the environment and measures are already being taken. We have developed biodegradable and compostable plastic, a plastic that is made from renewable biomaterials like plants, seaweed or even bacteria. Bioplastic can degrade on its own with the help of weathering and therefore it is an effective way to stop plastic pollution (Tan, 2020). There are already a lot of bioplastic out there and researchers keeps on making new ones using materials like seashells (Hitti, 2019), orange peel (Taccola, 2016), olive pits (Barrett, 2019) and mushrooms (Mushrooms ... The New Plastic?, 2014) to name a few, and all of them have great potentials to replace plastic. They can be made into sheets, they are suitable for industrial processes like injection moulding, they can be printed on and can be made into different colours and different hardness and lastly all of them are made up from wastes material which makes that they will not be too costly compared to normal plastic, in fact some of them could even compete against plastic. But why is it that they have not already replaced plastic? They have the same properties, they can degrade on their own and on top of that they have a lot of nutrients as they are made from organic products, therefore when they degrade, they provide minerals for our planet to stay green. Based on Vivian Tan’s talk, it has a lot to do with how we live and our incentives as humans to protect the planet, the rest of the solutions are already out there and is just waiting for actions to be taken (Tan, 2020). A lot of people do not know about bioplastic and how good it actually is, if we tell people about it, if we tell them it’s potentials to replace plastic, will people accept bioplastic, will they be willing to stop using plastic completely, will we be able to live in a world without plastic?

Barrett, A., 2019. Bioplastics Made From Olive Pits. [online] Bioplastics News. Available at: https://bioplasticsnews.com/2019/02/03/bioplastics-made-from-olive-pits/ [Accessed 23 September 2020].

Hitti, N., 2019. Shellworks Turns Discarded Lobster Shells Into Recyclable Bioplastic Objects. [online] Dezeen. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/02/22/shellworks-bioplastic-lobster-shell-design/ [Accessed 23 September 2020].

Taccola, G., 2016. Alchimia 2016 | Works | Ginevra Taccola. [online] Ginevrataccola.com. Available at: http://www.ginevrataccola.com/works/alchimia-2016/ [Accessed 23 September 2020].

Tan, V., 2020. Are Bio-Plastics A Sustainable Solution? | Vivian Tan | Tedxabbotsford. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjb7AlYOSgo [Accessed 23 September 2020].

University of San Francisco. 2014. Mushrooms ... The New Plastic?. [online] Available at: https://www.usfca.edu/news/mushrooms-the-new-plastic [Accessed 23 September 2020].

Specific Context

Based on Vivian Tan’s talk there already exist a plan on how to make bioplastic more available and sustainable, however the missing elements from her talk was, first, would consumers be willing to use bioplastic over the conventional petroleum based plastic, how much do consumers care about the environment, and secondly, is bioplastic suitable to all kinds of plastic products that already exist.

Based on this, my research was conducted in 2 parts. First, a survey was shared on Facebook groups to reach out to different people from different countries with different income level to find out more about the concern of consumers on plastic pollution. From the survey result, it was found that everybody thinks almost the same, their concerns about plastic pollution and thoughts on bioplastic was almost the same. 84 out of 149 people recycle and most of these people were from urban areas which means that most rural areas do not have recycling facilities. It was also found that people do care a lot about the environment and even though some people did point out a few negative point on bioplastic like, there may not be enough material to make it replace all the plastic in the world, it might not become as cheap as petroleum based plastic or it might deplete our natural resources more, they said that they will support it. A few other information was obtained like a practice of paying extra fees on plastic bottles to ensure that the consumer return the bottle for recycling in Netherlands, plastic is cheap because of the extraction of hydrocarbons and few people also mentioned that money will come in play when consumers will have to decided between conventional plastic and bioplastic.

For the second part, an observation was done based on my own consumption of plastic products in my apartment. The plastic products were categorized as electronic, hygiene, food item, stationary, misc. (for products that could not be categorized), tools and utensils, footwear, accessories, bags, pharmacy, containers and cleaning. Among all the different categories, products that already exist in another material like wood or glass and products that had potential to be made into bioplastic were noted. Based on this, it was found that most single use plastic could be turned into bioplastic, however some product that are made to last for a long period of time like water pipes or food containers might not be suitable for bioplastic as it may decompose during certain conditions in different countries.