Human Practice


The Importance of Human Practices

Human practices play a crucial role in DECOLOGY, providing chances for us to become enlightened by others, helping us ensure our project is on the right track, and even promoting our product while connecting with our target audience.

Igniting Sparks of Ideas

Interviews that Helped with Our Idea Development

We contacted a lot of experts to help with the progression of our ideas and concepts, some inspired us to incorporate drastic changes on our work, while some gave us advice that encouraged us to move forward.

All of these interviews are documented in our HP, and iHP pages.

Collaboration with Other Schools

In our journey, we met other talented and hardworking iGEMers, offering us various constructive advice and supportive words.

We contacted a lot of experts to help with the progression of our ideas and concepts, some inspired us to incorporate drastic changes on our work, while some gave us advice that encouraged us to move forward.

We took notes of our meetings and idea exchanges in our Collaboration, and Interactions page.

Prof. Hung
Chu, Chih-Chien
Professor of CSMU (Taiwan)
Department of Medical Applied Chemistry
5th May 2023
  • Why did we meet with them?
    Because we were trying to find some advantages in our project compared to the chemical way to decompose the color. Professor Chu has an excellent understanding of the chemical way. Thus, we thought we could learn a lot by having a meeting with Professor Chu.

  • The inspiration he provided us:
    During our discussion on what dyes our project would be suitable for removing, a team member suggested the decomposition of azo dyes. However, Professor Zhu reminded us that azo dyes are chemicals that bond colored substances to a benzene ring. After the dye removal process, aniline is produced. While aniline is a colorless substance, it is toxic and can harm the environment. Additionally, the professor mentioned that many dye removal methods involve the use of strong acids or alkalis such as sodium hydroxide in the process. There may be risks to the environment as strong acids and alkalis can potentially enter the environment through wastewater. Therefore, the professor believed that our project does indeed have the potential to address the issue of color removal and saw it as a promising and sustainable direction.
Prof. Lin
LIU, YU-FAN
Department of Biomedical Science
Research in protein structure design and database analysis
4th October 2023
  • Why did we meet with him?
    In addition to seeking advice from the professor in the wet lab, we also consulted experts in the dry lab. Professor Liu, our PI, is an expert in modeling, so we asked him questions about various modeling issues.

  • The inspiration he provided us:
    Professor Liu suggested several research directions related to modeling. Firstly, he recommended exploring changes in the sequence without altering the amino acid sequence to see if different tRNAs might be more suitable for increasing cellular productivity. Additionally, he advised using software to organize the amino acid sequences. Following his guidance, we eventually utilized Alpha Fold to generate the entire protein and visualize its three-dimensional structure. Thirdly, Professor Liu suggested illustrating the three protein configurations and then comparing their binding patterns. Following his advice, we achieved relevant results, which can be further detailed in the dry lab section. Lastly, he recommended measuring Kcat activity through enzyme kinetics analysis.
Prof. Lin
Wilson Hsu
Director of the Lab-22
Company that sells shoes made of bottles and coffee grounds
31st July 2023
  • Why did we meet with them?
    Our project's ideal scenario is for businesses to use our method to promote environmental conservation and reduce water usage. However, we are concerned that environmental initiatives might not favor textile companies, potentially affecting their willingness to adopt our project. Currently, no one in the textile industry is utilizing the reuse of wastewater from laundry. Therefore, we sought out Taiwanese textile companies that align with similar environmental themes, hoping to understand whether the spirit of environmental conservation can assist textile and apparel companies. Lab-22 is committed to environmental protection and has a successful sales experience. Their ideas and practices are like ours. We also need to confirm whether the ecofriendly products are difficult to be sold in Taiwan right now.

  • The inspiration he provided us:
    Mr. Hsu believes that our project's goal of mitigating potential environmental harm from factories is a good idea. He also said that the environment of environmental protection business in Taiwan is not necessarily as pessimistic as some news says, and environmental protection products have a chance to be successfully marketed.
    Before asking Mr. Hsu, we were discouraged by the fact that Taiwan's environmental protection companies are struggling to survive as mentioned in the previous Greenpeace news. However, this time Lab-22 gave us a completely different argument from the enterprise side. As far as the current situation is concerned, Lab-22 has a complete sales channel and stable development, and no similar problems have occurred. Lab-22 attributes this phenomenon to the different operating conditions of each company.
Prof. Lin
Ms. Sabrina
Director of Sustainable Materials Department
World-Renowned Clothing Brand (Spoke Anonymously)
15th May 2023
  • Why did we meet with them?
    1. To understand the current needs and perspectives of clothing brand factories.
    2. To gain insights into the processes involved in making clothes for major brands and identify areas where improvements can be made.

  • The inspiration she provided us:
    As the head of the company's sustainability materials department, her expertise lies in the company's use of recycled plastics to create clothing. The recycling process requires a color-removing technique similar to what we are planning. She emphasized that the color-removal technique is not unknown in the textile industry but currently requires more efficient methods. Therefore, our development of a new color-removal method provides an opportunity for future advancements in terms of efficiency. She also explained the corporate perspective on color-removal technology: our plan must have lower costs, save energy, and provide sufficient economic benefits. Additionally, she shared that consumer surveys in the UK have shown that 76% of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products. This is positive news for our final project because it can be applied to textile production lines to make them more environmentally friendly. As a result, businesses have the opportunity to gain more economic benefits from this environmental project, attracting more attention to the initiative, ultimately creating a positive feedback loop.
Prof. Lin
Feedback from Nanshan High School Students
11th August 2023
  • Interview Context
    During our educational activities at Nanshan High School, we took the opportunity to interview several students from different groups to gather their thoughts and opinions on our project. Recognizing that students may not have an in-depth understanding of the intricacies of textile factory operations, we asked them about their views and understanding of environmental issues related to textiles to gain insight into the public's perspective on these matters.

  • YouTube Content
    To generate a larger impact, we have posted the relevant interview videos on YouTube. For more detailed content, you can visit our YouTube page.
Making Our Project Shine

Educational Outreach & Promotion

To make the public more aware about the problem regarding excess water consumption, we decided to organize interactive activities to convey our objectives, and also enhance our project's popularity.

We took notes of our meetings and idea exchanges in our Education, and Promotion.

Our Vision
In order to implement our project in society, we promoted our initiative through online articles, videos, and social media platforms. We also conducted educational activities in schools to increase the publicity of our project.
Also, in our appointment with the R&D team of Shinkong Textiles, we received invaluable suggestions on the direction of our project. We look forward to further collaboration with the company in the future, for our project to mature continuously.

In our most ideal scenario, our Color Catcher will be placed in textile factory wastewater, and will help remove the synthetic dyes in the water. After the process, it will be the time for our hardware to shine. Our spectrometer can help test the optical density, then upload the data into our software.

After the color removal, factories can then reuse this decontaminated wastewater to wash new clothes, eliminating concerns about dye contamination and helping themselves save water and reduce costs. Simultaneously, this approach can decrease the environmental impact caused by wastewater discharge, solving our biggest issue.