The Junction

Science

Year 5

Year 5 are studying plants in Science at the moment. Today they came up to the Secondary School labs to do a flower dissection to help them learn the parts of the flower. Students are completing tasks to see if they can become an expert so that they can pass an interview to work at Miracle Gardens.

JAS Enterprise

The final session of Term 2 JAS Enterprise saw the students competing to create a new product for an existing business in a specified country. The creativity and innovation this group showed was amazing. The winning team created a McDumpling product for McDonalds to target the Chinese market. We also had fish and chip pizzas and cookie dough creamers being developed. I’ll miss this bunch of entrepreneurs and look forward to handing them their hard earned profit next week! 

Article of Interest

Plastic Problems

Every year between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans and as a result animals of all shapes and sizes are eating plastic. The problem is that this pollution is often deadly to wildlife; bottle tops, plastic bags, and straws are often found in the stomachs of turtles, fish and even whales.

Part of the problem is that plastics were designed to last forever and they don't disappear. The plastic does break down but it only turns into smaller plastics called microplastics which are then ingested by small organisms and end up in our food chains. This makes the task of cleaning up seem impossible but I have found this positive article that focuses on five solutions to the plastic crisis. It is amazing the changes that we can make with the help of Science. It may inspire some of you budding conservationists to study Biology at a higher level and build careers in the conservation industry.

5 Unexpected solutions to the plastic crisis

The plastic crisis is one of the greatest challenges facing planet earth.

Currently, 12.7 million tonnes of plastic ends up in our oceans each year, and the consequences for sealife are tragic, from choking turtles to poisoning whales. Clearly, the main solution is reducing the amount of plastic we use at the source, but people are also turning to technology, lateral thinking and even other species to find the answer to the monstrous behemoth of plastic on planet earth.

Here are five of the strangest solutions:

Mushrooms

Aspergillus tubingensis is a darkly pigmented species of fungus that thrives in warm habitats. It is nothing special to look at, but it has one property that has made it of key interest to scientists. The big problem with plastic is that it doesn’t break down or degrade – and which is why we’ve probably got plastic inside our bodies right now. Finding agents that can break down polymers would help vastly. A group of microbiologists at Quaid-i-Azam University in Pakistan found that Aspergillus tubingensis could degrade polyurethane (PU). “The fungus secretes enzymes that degrade the plastics, and in return, the fungus gets food from it by dissolving the plastics,” said lead author Sehroon Khan. The fungus could be used to break down plastic in landfill.

The Ocean Cleanup

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of plastic in the oceans, and it sits between California and Hawaii. It is three times the size of France and its total amount is 80,000 tonnes. Engineers from the Netherlands, led by a 24-year-old Dutch inventor called Boyan Slat, have launched an ocean cleanup system called ‘System 001’. It is an enormous, 600m long, floating, rubbish-collector, which collects plastic in a 3m deep skirt. A garbage truck ship will collect the plastic every few months. Using computer simulations and scale models, the group have tested and trialled the system and it is now travelling towards the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Slat has been both praised and criticised for his invention but, currently, it is a case of wait and see. No one really knows what’s going to happen. “The moment I am looking forward most to is when we are taking the first plastic back and it’s proven technology,” Slat has said.

Roads made from plastic?

Another idea to come from the Netherlands is a project called PlasticRoad. It is a stretch of bike path in the Dutch city of Zwolle made of recycled plastic - and it is the first of its kind. It is a way of re-using plastic bottles, cups and packaging instead of burning it or putting it in landfill. Currently the road uses 70 per cent recycled plastic, but future plans will use 100 per cent recycled plastic. The company says that it is even more durable than asphalt, takes less time to install and requires less heavy equipment, making the carbon footprint smaller, too. The first road in Zwolle is 30m long and contains the recycled plastic equivalent of over 218,000 plastic cups or 500,000 plastic bottle caps. In November a second plastic road will be built in Overijssel.

Seaweed instead of plastic

The fight against plastic has led engineers and designers to search for other materials that could be used for packaging foodstuffs. Bioplastics are made from renewable biomass, usually vegetable fats and oils, cassava starch, woodchips or food waste. Seaweed, however, is the solution used by Indonesian start-up called Evoware. The company works with local seaweed farmers to create sandwich and burger wraps, sachets for flavouring and coffee, and soap packaging, all made out of seaweed. It can be dissolved in hot water or, to reduce waste to zero, the packaging is also edible. Sustainable and nutritious.

Social plastic

The biggest problem plastic causes is its effect on ocean life. By 2050, by some estimates, there could be more pieces of plastic than fish in the sea. One idea to stop plastic getting there in the first place is a little more abstract. The Plastic Bank is a social enterprise which pays an above-market rate for plastic waste. People who collect plastic can trade it in for money, items (fuel, cook stoves) or services, such as school fees. The project incentivises people to collect ocean-bound plastic before it enters the waterways while fighting poverty, giving people an income, cleaning up the streets, and reducing the amount of waste that goes into the oceans. The aim of Plastic Bank is to make plastic too valuable to throw away and turn it into a currency. The company then sells the plastic on to corporate clients, who pay around three times more than plastic normally costs. It currently operates in Haiti, Brazil and Philippines and is set to open in South Africa, India, Panama and the Vatican.

Reference:

https://www.bbcearth.com/news/5-unexpected-solutions-to-the-plastic-crisis

Mr Al Buni

Teacher of Arabic

Staff Focus/Highlight

Our Music teachers Mr Laird and Ms Pickrell will be performing at the Mozart Requiem on Sunday, 19 March. For more details, click the link below.

https://dubai.platinumlist.net/event-tickets/86716/mozart-requiem-plus-orchestral-favourites-dubai-college