Empathize

The idea was derived from the daily problem we face of pollution. Plastic is a resource we produce and use on a daily basis. People are careless of the way they dispose this material, and eventually it harms the environment. We, as a group, are trying to solve. Our main target are members of the ACS community by placing our prototype on school grounds. If our project is successful we will place it in public places around the city and target members of the local community.

Ever since the beginning of this unit, we were interested in the effect of plastic on the environment. From our research, we found that plastic takes about 1000 years to decompose, and it has numerous harmful impacts on the environment including that it is poisonous to our food chain and releases toxic chemicals. Also, we learned that it eventually has negative impacts on us, human beings. This has led to us to think about the impact it has on the ACS community.

While trying to find the best solution to this problem, we watched the video by Emma Bryce and determined that recycling is a key solution to this problem because plastic can be used over and over again if it is recycled properly.

In order to understand the biggest waste problem at ACS, we took an advantage of technology. Since many students in our STEM class use the Litterati application, our group used the Litterati map to collect data. We examined the photos taken at ACS and found that the most common waste was plastic.

Along with the environmental impacts of plastic, this result motivated us to make a plastic recycling bin for the ACS community.