In order to evaluate our community’s understanding of microplastics, the 2023 iGEM team at Del Norte High School released a survey on August 1, 2022. The survey included 20 original questions. They were split up into two different question formats: knowledge-based questions and personal questions. Knowledge-based questions included both true or false questions as well as multiple-choice questions. For each question, we had a “not sure” option in order to better deter people from simply guessing the answer, ensuring greater accuracy in our findings.
1. Multiple Choice: Which of the following numbers is closest to the amount of plastic waste produced annually?
2. True or False: Plastic can only be degraded by ultraviolet light from the sun (photodegradation).
3. True or False: 20% of plastics are recycled.
4. Multiple Choice: Most single-use water bottles are made from which type of plastic?
5. Multiple Choice: Plastics lose what percent of their material value after a single use?
6. Multiple Choice: How many states in the United States have banned single-use plastic bags in stores?
7. How are microplastics made?
8. Microplastics make up what percentage of all plastic in the ocean?
9. TRUE or FALSE: Human exposure to microplastics is linked to obesity.
10. TRUE or FALSE: Microplastics can enter the human body through ingestion of contaminated food and water
11. How large is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
12. A majority of plastic pollution in the ocean is caused by…?
13. What are some commonly found plastics within the ocean?
14. TRUE or FALSE: There are more microplastics in the ocean than there are stars in the Milky Way.
15. TRUE or FALSE: 60% of all seabirds have eaten pieces of plastic.
Our survey also included a series of personal questions regarding recycling as well.
Here is the link to all of our survey questions, including the answer choices: Survey Questions PDF
After carefully analyzing the data, we noticed a few patterns:
TThere were a total of 60 responses received. Out of the 13 questions, the mean accuracy was 3.67/13 or 28.23% while the median was 3/13 or 23%. The range of the correct answers was from 0-9 points, with 0/13 being the lowest and 9/13 being the highest. Across all of the survey questions, the mean number of correct responses for each question was 16.92/ 60 The question with the highest number of correct responses was “Multiple Choice: Most single-use water bottles are made from which type of plastic?” with 34/60 correct responses. This is an indication that many people have an understanding or have heard of a common application of plastic, like water bottles, and PET.
In contrast, the question with the lowest number of correct responses was Question 12, “Multiple Choice: Multiple Choice: What percentage is closest to the proportion of clothes that are made up of synthetic fibers (polyester, nylon, etc.)?”, with only 6/60 correct responses. Another question with a low number of correct responses was the question “Multiple choice: How large is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?”, with 9/60 correct responses. We noticed a few patterns, like how more people got the later questions, like 8-13 more incorrect, than 1-7. This could mean that people thought that they knew the right answer, which is why they guessed instead of choosing, the “Not Sure” choice. This demonstrates how many people think that they know much about plastic pollution, but when it comes to looking at the correct responses, they are very low. This would be a general trend that we can get from our audience, that they know of the topic, but are not very knowledgeable in depth about plastic pollution. Since our project is based on PET degradation, it was important for us to assess our community's understanding of plastic pollution and fill in the gaps with our research.
With this in mind, we then examined the number of times survey-takers put “not sure” as their answer for all the questions. The average number of “not sure” answers between the 13 questions was 23.77/60. The highest number of “not sure” answers on a certain question was 28/60 while the lowest number of “not sure” answers was 14/60. We found that there is an overall higher number of “not sure” answers in the multiple-choice questions (mean of 26.6/60) in contrast to the overall lower number of “not sure” answers in the true or false questions (mean of 22/60). This tells us that people are less confident about their answers when the options are more specific numbers, compared to a 50/50 chance of getting the answer correct with a true and false. Again, this is an indication that the survey takers had insufficient knowledge and were instead relying on guessing or the ‘Not Sure’ option. The results of this survey helped us recognize that we could make a significant improvement in our community’s understanding of PET degradation, plastic pollution, and microplastics– all of which are topics that are essential to understanding our project. This inspired us to post short infographics with the correct answers to the survey questions on our Instagram page, in order to give our followers the opportunity to check their answers and learn from their mistakes.
The information from this survey is purely for statistical purposes. Each response was recorded anonymously with consent, and no personal data was collected.