Cleaning Up Plastic Bottles On The Beach

 

Ella Aflalo

Bryan Arevalo

Angel Baez

Jennifer Guayllazaca

Zeal Patel

Radhamy Liranzo

 

City College of New York

 

 

 

Table of Contents

Summary                                                                                                                            3

Introduction                                                                                                                        4

Labor-Power                                                                                                                      7

Materials                                                                                                                            9

Technical Description – String Clean up – Jennifer Guayllazaca                                       12

Task Schedule                                                                                                                  15

Evaluation Techniques                                                                                                     15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

Beach pollution is detrimental to the environment because it is Non-Biodegradable, meaning the materials do not decompose. The most common of these materials include plastic bottles. Because plastic bottles cannot biodegrade, they release harmful chemicals and populate the beach with bacterial contamination. One example of bacterial contamination is in Myrtle Beach, also known as “Dirty Myrtle”. Since there are a lot of plastic bottles on Myrtle beach, seabirds often tend to ingest plastic particles with their food.

The proposed solution for the plastic ingestion problem is to reduce the amount of plastic on Myrtle beach by having people collect plastic bottles and bring them to plastic string making stations. The reason for people to collect the plastic bottles will be that they can create jewelry at the stations. By partnering up with the Surfrider Foundation, we will gather two volunteers each to operate a station. There are 25 planned mobile stations which can be carted around the beach during certain times, 15 on duty and 10 on reserve. The plastic bottles brought to each station will be converted to string by the plastic string making mechanism by one volunteer while the other crafts the jewelry with the string. A minimum of 5 bottles is required in exchange for the string and collectors can get up to 5% discount off at local snack bars with the jewelry.  The leftover string from bottles in excess of 5 is collected by the volunteers and weaved into bracelets, which are then given to local shops and sold as stock to sell. This encourages publicity of the program all while increasing store revenue and customers. The proposed budget for this solution is roughly $1950.00. This includes the cost of blades, wood, string, pulleys, and screws and produces 25 units of string making machines. Fundraising for this budget will be held through goFundMe, public gatherings, and city assistance.

 

Introduction

We all love going to the beach and having a wonderful time, but it comes with a cost. With human footprint increasing day by day, the pollution on the beaches is increasing exponentially. According to Earthday’s website, more than eight million tons of plastic is being dumped into the oceans annually. That is one garbage truck of plastic being dumped every minute into our oceans. Today, plastics, especially plastic bottles, are one of the biggest pollutants on the beach. Plastic pollution is so deleterious because it is non-biodegradable. A non-biodegradable material cannot be decomposed by microorganisms, and hence it can remain in the environment for centuries. Plastics are especially harmful to the marine life as the marine creatures may choke to death from eating the plastics. A simple effective solution is needed.

To accomplish our goal, we have teamed up with the Surfrider Foundation. According to surfrider.org, the foundation’s mission is “dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s ocean, waves and beaches through a powerful activist network.” The foundation operates on local, regional, and national levels making noise through community efforts and legal, and policy efforts to bring attention to the problem of beach pollutions. By teaming up with the Surfrider foundation, we are able to raise volunteers for our initiative and work closely with a wide network of people who care about our cause. The volunteers will receive special training by the creators of the project, and will be able to carry out the duties delegated to them.

Our programs intends to start out small at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, also known as “Dirty Myrtle”. We aim to attain two main objectives through our proposal. First and the most important one is to collect plastic bottles from the beaches including: containers, milk jugs, etc… and recycle and reuse them. Second, is to involve the community and build a sense of responsibility to help keep the beaches clean. Our program contains two major components. The first part of the initiative relies on the involvement of the community, by collecting plastic bottles from the beach and turning in those bottles to volunteers provided by the Surfrider Foundation. Once the collectors turn in their bottles to the volunteers at the stations, the volunteers use the bottles to make string using specialized machines. It is important to note that a minimum of five bottles collected is necessary to participate in the incentive program. Once the volunteer creates the string, a second volunteer at the station weaves it into a bracelet for the collector to keep. The bracelet is made from 100% recycled plastic collected by the participant. In addition to the bracelet, collectors who participate in the incentive program will receive a 5% discount at a local beach store as a reward for their contribution. In order to achieve this relationship with the retailer, leftover string received from collectors will be turned into bracelets and given to local stores to sell as stock. Since a 1-liter bottle makes one bracelet, the remaining bottles will be used to make additional bracelets to be given as stock. Using this method, we are able to provide both an incentive for citizens to participate in the program, and an incentive for the local merchants to become a part of the initiative. The bracelet at the end of the process symbolizes a greater purpose. It is a symbol of helping rid the community of excess pollution and making a step towards saving the world, and also acts as the coupon for the discount in the local beach store.

While the proposed program does not solve  the entirety of pollution around the world, we hope to accomplish a great deal of impact on the clean up of plastic bottles. We project to expand the program based on its success to cities around the U.S. where the Surfrider Foundation has a presence. In addition we hope to raise awareness in general to the population whether they participate or not, and hopefully get the attention the problem deserves.

In this proposal we have included in greater detail the labor-power required for this program, along with costs, materials, and further descriptions. A rough figure that we intend to spend on this proposal is $1950 which includes expenses from material costs, to building the devices to promoting and advertising our idea. We plan to fundraise using sites like GoFundMe, where people can directly donate to us. Also, we plan to plan to request grants to governmental organizations that take of care of the beaches and other non-profit organization. Partnering with such organization will help us raise the funds we need and it will also help the community. Additionally, we have included a technical description of the proposed program which details the machine we have designed to create the string and bracelets from the plastic bottles.

 

Labor-Power

Labor will be provided mostly by volunteers and carpenters will be making the bases of our machines; most of our funds will be spent manufacturing the string makers. Three existing string makers that inspired us are the wood block string maker, the bottle cap string maker, and a U-shaped bracket string maker. All three of these use a different house for a blade that slices the bottle by stripping it into one long piece of string. The wood block string maker is sturdy but doesn’t have the durability that stainless steel can bring so it will require replacements sooner causing more expenses. The wood block string maker we saw also seemed unsafe. The bottle cap string maker is the hazardous one of the three with little holding the knife in place. The U-shaped bracket string maker has multiple components that can require more maintenance and expense. After seeing these three different types of string makers that currently exist, we have created a string maker that will perform best for the durability, safety, efficiency, and simplicity. Manufacturing our machine requires a carpenter, and from there only a blade must be inserted. The carpenter must sculpt 75 pieces of wood which can take about 20 hours. The average pay of a carpenter per hour is $20 according to ziprecruiter.com; in total we would have to pay the carpenter about $400 and we should have our bases in less than a week.  Making one unit takes about 2 minutes since it is equivalent to replacing a blade, all that must be done is a blade must be inserted into its holster in its entirety and tested for assurance of its placement. The bracelet machine will require a bit more work since hooks are inserted and screwed into three holes in one of the pieces of wood made by the carpenter. The other piece of wood has one hole that will hold the crank into place. Installing them will be a part of the volunteer work since the devices are simply put together and placed on the carts for use. Training will take about 1 minute with another ten for maintenance training which will include changing the blade and making sure screws are tight on the bracelet maker. These units can all be installed and stored within a day. Beach season will bring volunteers that are out of high school and wish to do some community service for their college resume. College students that are activist or just simply love to get involved with more than just their community like sororities and fraternities will be eager to help the cause since it’s on the beach where most already go while on vacation. The more volunteers we have the less hours they will be required to work which will encourage potential volunteers to join. During beach season we can have stands open from dawn till dusk if the help is there. The process of stripping a bottle into string with one of these devices can take approximately 2-3 minutes depending on the speed and eagerness of its user that simply pulls on a string till none is left to be made from the bottle. A bracelet can be made in two minutes by a volunteer but can take up to four if done by a first timer or a child.

 

Materials

Screws- Butterfly fasteners provide strong and steady grip to the base. 75 cost about $0.50 per unit. These will hold the device together firmly for stability and safety.

 

Snap-off 55mm Blade- 25 stainless steel snap off blades 55 millimeters long with an average cost of $2, there are anti-rust boxcutter which provide durability so the machines can cut bottles for weeks before needing blade change. This will serve as inventory for the 15 machines in use.

 

Wood – 75 sculpted pieces, 25 rectangular blocks of dimensions 4” by 6” by 6”(length, height, width); these will serve and the base for the string maker, and 50 rectangular blocks 4” by 6” by 2” (l, h, w); these will serve as bases for the bracelet maker . Cost range from free to $15 per square foot depending on its grade, plus the cost of labor by a carpenter.

 

Crank- 25 crank handles cost about $10 each, available in aluminum and stainless steel for durability against the weather. This will be used in the bracelet maker to twirl the string into a bracelet.

 

Hook – 25 small hooks with a cost of about 50 cents, capable of holding the string in tension for bracelet making. They should have a thread length of about ½” and a hook height that is 1 to 3 of a 16^th of an inch.

 

Tables- 15 tables are necessary and are available for about $10. The devices will be easily mounted on them with a table top of 16” width and 33” length. Serves as a workstation for the volunteers to help people use the string maker and bracelet maker.

 

Technical Description – String Clean up

 

To aid in the cleaning we have designed a three-component machine that allows for one, to cut the bottom of the bottles which are collected, second make the string out of the cut bottles, and lastly the bracelet making component, which uses the string previously made.

 

Pictures in attached file
Component 1Figure 1: Bottle End Cutter

The first part of this component is the blade located within the circular shaft as seen in Figure 1. The blade is a snap- off OLFA 55mm blade. This blade gives us the ability to use one blade entirely and just snap off one the dull edges of the blade without the need to buy a full new one, saving money and creating less waste. Holding the blade in place is the circular shaft that the end of the bottle will be inserted into. At the bottom of the circular shaft is the Drop shaft as seen in Figure 1, this drop shaft helps to move the cut ends of the bottles to a bin placed at the bottom.

 

Pictures in attached file 

Figure 2: String Cutter

On the opposite face of component 1, where the circular shaft is, there is the second part of the machine. This component also uses a Snap-off 55mm blade as seen in Figure 2, to help lessen cost as well as lessen the creation of waste. It is attached to the full component by being placed within the edge of the Bottle Placer. The bottle placer is an indentation within the full cedar wood box component which allows for the collected cut bottle to be placed in and turned, allowing for the string to be made. The string that is made is at 5/8^th of inch length making it easy to connect to the last component of the machine.

Pictures in attached file 

Figure 3: Bracelet Creator

In this last component, there are 3 major parts. First, there is the wood block which measures 4” in height and 6” in length. This cedar wood plank has 3 holes within it each at a 5/8^th of an inch diameter as well allowing the string to go through to the other end located a foot away. This second block has a hook which attaches to a crank as seen in figure 3. To this, the bottle string is fed through the hole, knotted and hooked on to the hook. After all, 3 strings are in tension the person moves the crank. The crank as well as the hook are both made from stainless steel and are all one piece. The material is useful as it does not lot corrode as easily as well it is very durable. This is important as it will be not used by those who know how to use it, but by other users, making the machine further capable to be used in the long run.

 

Task Schedule

 

Figure 1: Schedule of Proposal Tasks

Evaluation Techniques

We plan on using a variety of methods to test the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposal. A few weeks after the string making machines are introduced on Myrtle Beach, we will be handing out surveys to assess people’s overall feedback with the proposal. This survey will ask people their overall opinion towards the program, how much they’ve used our string making machines, and for what reasons. This way we can see what the public likes about our program, and what we need to change in order to improve upon it. We will also compare the plastic pollution before and after the proposal’s implementation to see if the string making stations solve the pollution problem on the beach. If the plastic pollution reduces by at least 5% as a result of our program, we have succeeded in our goal.

 

Full file- Beach Clean Up