Interview with Mil Mill (June 17th)
Mil Mill is the first and only pulp mill education centre that recycles beverage cartons in Hong Kong. We interviewed Mil Mill's founder to learn about the production and recycling of paper-based products, including plastic-coated paper beverage cartons, and learn more about the industry.Brief introduction of the interview video
Mr. Ip, the founder of Mil Mill, took us on a factory tour and showed us how paper products are recycled into pulp through the physical separation of paper fibres and plastics. Besides learning about the recycling industry and the recycling process, Mr Ip shared his experiences and difficulties in running the factory, especially how different stakeholders are involved. Regarding commercializing our project, Mr Ip gave us some advice and considerations for commercial-scale applications, including the challenge of testing ideas on a commercial scale compared to a laboratory scale.Mil Mill gave us a platform to test our ideas on a commercial scale, address any shortcomings, and integrate our project towards commercial production. Like Mil Mill, we aim to reduce the environmental pollution caused by mixed fibre waste and raise awareness on these issues addressed through our project.
If you want to know more about our visit to Mil Mill, we
recommend you to check out our video to learn more!
Mil Mill Boss Interview: Are paper-wrapped drink boxes actually environmentally friendly?
Link to video: https://youtu.be/Y-g7xpUlrKc
Dr. Sunita Varjani
Visiting Fellow, School of Energy and Environment,City University of Hong Kong
https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/persons/sunita-varjani
(f3620dfe-189e-4f07-9e35-fa31263f1455).html
Interview with Dr. Varjani (9th August)
We had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Varjani from City University, who specializes in bioremediation. Her current research focuses on developing circular waste-based biorefineries for the sustainable production of chemicals and fuels. We hoped to better understand Hong Kong's environmental situation and seek advice to improve our project.Waste management and spreading awareness
She expressed the lack of public awareness of the mutagenic nature of PFAs, and we should organize activities highlighting these plastics' harmful effects. We recommend us to accommodate social, economic and environmental needs by collaborating with companies or other professors and conducting public surveys.
Project improvements
Dr Varjani says using cocktail enzymes may improve the performance/ capacity to degrade. We should also determine the chemical composition of mixed waste we wish to degrade, like details about molecular weight, to improve plastic degradation efficiency further.We sought advice on handling toxic chemicals like hydrogen fluoride (HF) during degradation. The most feasible method is neutralization by sodium bicarbonate. We can approach the detection of end products chemically (chromatography, LC mass, FIT) and quantitatively (optical microscope).
Our final concern stems from digesting the plastics with enzymes inside the E.coli. Not only may this produce substrates allowing E.coli to kill themselves, but it may interfere with the enzyme's functionality. Thus, we planned to excrete the enzymes before degradation. Dr Sunita believes we can attempt both methods and immobilize our enzymes for better results.
Interview with EPD
The HKSAR Government's Environmental Protection Department (EPD) is responsible for developing policies covering environmental protection, nature conservation and enforcing environmental legislation. In this interview, we sought professional advice on our project to understand the current plastic disposal situation and related policies in Hong Kong.However, it is unfortunate that there has yet to be a substantive response as to whether they will participate in more post-recycling treatment processes and increase support for the industry
Environment and Ecology Bureau (EEB)
The HKSAR Government's Environment and Ecology Bureau (EBB) is another department concerned with the environment. They expressed their admiration towards our project, and they have invited us to have a presentation at a ceremony next year.
iGEM 2023 HK-Macau Symposium (12th August)
We organized and hosted the 2023 HK-Macau Symposium with seven teams attending, ranging from secondary to university teams. We intended to host this symposium to promote collaboration and exchange of ideas with other teams and be a learning opportunity to see what aspects can be improved within our projects.Teams attended
CUHK
HKUST
HKU
HK-Joint School
PolyU
UM-Macau
SKHLPSS
If you are interested in our presentations, you can have a look!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onRUA85d3Mk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onRUA85d3Mk
Event Summary
The event opened with remarks from our team supervisor, Professor Ngo, and each team shared a 20-minute presentation of their projects, shortly followed by a Q&A session. We had a great turnout with around 100 participants from 8 teams , and we awarded them a certificate to acknowledge this achievement. We hope this event can encourage future local iGEM teams to host these events. We welcome non-iGEM school teachers and students to participate and build engagement to iGEM. Team members were awarded a certificate for their active participation. We hope this event can encourage future local iGEM teams to host these events as a learning opportunity and further spread the word about iGEM and synthetic biology.iGBA Industry-Academic-Research Forum
(19th August)
Representatives from our team attended the Zhuhai Symposium hosted by Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai, we prepared a poster to showcase our project. We also took this as an opportunity to survey participants to understand public awareness of paper based and plastic based alternatives
Questionnaire Result
We found that many of the responders need to familiarize themselves with the recycling situation of paper-based alternatives. More than 80% of respondents prefer paper-based alternatives over plastic products (Figure 1). About 2/3 of people think most paper-based alternatives are recyclable (Figure 2), which, in fact, are not. Only 27% have heard of PFAs before (Figure 3), and almost half of the respondents don’t know that PFAs harm our health (Figure 4).
Figure 1: Results on whether people prefer using
paper-based alternatives over plastic products
Figure 3: Results on whether people have heard of PFAs before
Figure 2: Results on whether people think
paper-based alternatives are recyclable
Figure 4: Results on whether people think PFAs
have harmful effects on our health
Recombinant DNA techniques tutorial
given by our team members
Students added samples into different
wells by using pipette correctly
High School Workshop (19th August)
Our hope from this workshop was to not only teach students but also allow them to apply the knowledge we taught them and give them a taste of what we do in iGEM.
1. To educate high school students with basic synthetic biology techniques, which is PCR, Gel Electrophoresis and Plate Spreading
2. To introduce high school students what iGEM is
3. To provide lab experiences in CUHK lab
4. For iGEM participating schools: to provide synthetic biology training and insights of iGEM for nurturing future iGEMers in their high school team
5. For non-iGEM participating schools: to provide synthetic biology training and insights of iGEM to arouse their interest on iGEM, as well as encouraging these high schools join iGEM in future years
2. To introduce high school students what iGEM is
3. To provide lab experiences in CUHK lab
4. For iGEM participating schools: to provide synthetic biology training and insights of iGEM for nurturing future iGEMers in their high school team
5. For non-iGEM participating schools: to provide synthetic biology training and insights of iGEM to arouse their interest on iGEM, as well as encouraging these high schools join iGEM in future years
Students spread E.coli on a plate
Students prepared master mix by
mixing different essential reagents
Event Summary
We organized and hosted a synthetic biology workshop with high school students. Since participants were from different years, we prepared a presentation to teach them some fundamental knowledge about DNA and recombinant DNA techniques. All 22 participants (11 are 2023 iGEMer and 11 did not join iGEM before) from 11 secondary schools in Hong Kong. After getting a grasp of the practical experiments, they conducted some practical experiments (transformation, gel electrophoresis, spreading plate) to gain first-hand experience on what was learnt. We teach many knowledge and techniques about the synthetic biology, the content can be find here: https://pdf.ac/yUF3v. We also prepared an evaluation at the end to gain some feedback, with which many students were left satisfied with the enriching experience.
Figure 1: Results on whether the participants
after attending the workshop were more interested in joining iGEM
Figure 2: Results on whether participants gained
a better understanding of synthetic biology after the workshop
Feedback from participants
Based on the results, we can see that the workshop gave them a better understanding of synthetic biology to a certain extent. Also, majority of the participants are interested to join IGEM in the future. It will be a great opportunity for them to expore more and showcase their talents. Our goal is to engage students in synthetic biology and garner their interest in joining iGEM by giving them a taste of what we do in our project. Due to the limited lab equipment and lab space, we can only accommodate 22 people this year. We hope we can continue to hold this workshop annually and make it bigger in the future.Acknowledgement
Primary school STEAM workshop
We held a DNA education workshop on September 16 at SKH Chu Oi Primary School (Lei Muk Shue). A total of 100 primary school students (20 each from primary 2 to primary 6) participated in this workshop. First, we gave students a survey to see how much they knew about DNA. It turns out that most of them didn't have much ideas about DNA. Then, we briefly introduced to students what DNA and IGEM are. Team members from HK-SKHLPSS team and HK-Joint-School team are the collaborators who helped the students conduct the experiment this time. At the end of the workshop, we conducted another survey with the students, and the results showed that the students successfully learned more about DNA.Our primary school educational workshop has been reported by local news. Click the link for more information: http://www.hkstemnews.com/#/newMessage?id=155
Event Run Down
1. Introduction of DNA
Cultivate their interest in science from an early age2. Making candy double strand DNA Model
Different colours of candy represent different kinds of base. Students learned the concept of base pairing and double strand DNA3. Extract DNA from Banana
Allow students able to see DNA with the naked eye and understand DNA more easily
DNA model
Banana DNA extraction
Feedback from participants
Many students know nothing about DNA and synthetic biology. It was good to see that most students knew more about them (Figure 1) after the activity and were satisfied with the two experiments in this workshop (Figure 2 and Figure 3).
Figure 1: Results on whether the participants after attending the workshop knew more about synthetic biology
Figure 2: Results on whether the participants enjoyed the DNA model-making experiment
Figure 3: Results on whether the participants enjoyed the banana DNA extraction experiment
Mil Mill Recycling Activity (September 17th)
We set up a booth at Mil Mill's recycling event to introduce our project to the public. We also interviewed the public and Mil Mill staff with a questionnaire. The questionnaire aims to investigate the public's awareness of paper- and plastic-based alternatives and understand people's thoughts on the recycling industry.Questionnaire Results
Our questionnaire results show that more than half of respondents preferred paper alternatives (paper cups) to plastic ones because they wanted to protect the environment (Figure 1). However, in reality, many paper alternatives contain different plastics. Take a paper cup as an example; it contains PE and PFAs (need reference). Over one-third of respondents said they don’t think PFAs are harmful/ don’t know if PFAs are harmful (Figure 2). Also, many have no idea how bioremediation methods can be used to degrade mixed waste (Figure 3). Fortunately, we introduced current environmental issues in Hong Kong through our project to raise awareness.
Figure 1: Results on whether people prefer using paper-based alternatives over plastic products
Figure 2: Results on whether people think PFAs have harmful effects on our health
Figure 3: Results show many people have no idea how bioremediation methods can be used to degrade mixed waste