A beach in Cambodia. "Recycled" plastic from the U.S. often gets shipped here.

Image by The Guardian. Read the full article here.

This is the development blog for our UARTS 175 creative collaborative project — Robarium. This project surrounds the themes of "Cyber," "Sanctuary," and "Sustainability" and is intended to raise awareness about environmental preservation with an aquarium — only the fish are robotic and the coral is composed of recycled trash. The team members are Ronald Kreucher, Thomas Brown, Yatee Balan, Williams Hu, and Adam Heiler, collaborating with Krystelle Fernandez, Devin Jones, and Dr. Derrick Yeo. We are guided by our peer mentor, Charleson Shuart.  

The Secret Behind Plastic Recycling

Excerpt from article by The Guardian: "Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America's dirty secret"

"The Guardian found that each month throughout the second half of 2018, container ships ferried about 260 tons of US plastic scrap into one of the most dystopian, plastic-covered places of all: the Cambodian seaside town of Sihanoukville, where, in some areas, almost every inch of the ocean is covered with floating plastic and the beach is nothing but a glinting carpet of polymers.

“I cannot accept plastic being imported into our country,” said a resident, Heng Ngy, 58. Ngy and his wife live in a wooden house on stilts that seems to hover on a sea of plastic. A pungent stench wafts up to the open-aired rooms.

Cambodia’s waste problem is believed to stem from its own use of plastic and a lack of any system for dealing with it. No one interviewed in Sihanoukville had any idea that plastic recycling was being exported from the United States, and what happened to the plastic after it arrived is unclear.

Experts estimate that 20% to 70% of plastic entering recycling facilities around the globe is discarded because it is unusable – so any plastic being recycled at Sihanoukville would inevitably result in more waste there."

Here is a link to the full article by The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-plastic-america-global-crisis 

Coral Reefs Are in Danger

With the continuing climate and pollution crisis, coral reefs and the aquatic life that call these oceanic sanctuaries home are in danger. According to the Smithsonian magazine, planet Earth has lost half of its coral reefs since 1950.

Read about it here.

Coral bleaching occurs when corals become stressed due to changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients, causing them to expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues. Prolonged algae loss and continued stress can ultimately result in coral death. The primary causes of coral reef bleaching are higher ocean temperatures due to climate change and deteriorating water quality from pollution, which are both caused by human activity.

This information was obtained from the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Read their article on the topic here.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, "Thousands of marine animals depend on coral reefs for survival, including some species of sea turtles, fish, crabs, shrimp, jellyfish, sea birds, starfish, and more. Coral reefs provide shelter, spawning grounds, and protection from predators. They also support organisms at the base of ocean food chains. As reef ecosystems collapse, already at-risk species may face extinction." 

Read the short World Wildlife Fund article on the topic here.

Image from the New York Times, linked here.