Combined Research Dossier
Environmental Case Study
I.D.I.O.T. Studios
Game Art: Building Alliances 2024/25
Contents
List of Figures .............................................................................................. pg. 3
Flooding and Microplastics by Evie Joyce ................................................... pg. 5
Microplastics in the Urban Environment by Nathan Dobson........................ pg. 4
Fungi’s Use in Degrading plastics by Holly Davis ........................................ pg.7
Microplastics in Caves and their Impact on Erosion by Holly Davis.............. pg. 8
What are Landfills and how they affect the environment by Damien Street pg. 9
By Sasha Bowman (extension)..................................................................... pg.
Bibliography ................................................................................................ pg. 12
LIST OF FIGURES (IN ORDER OF APPERANCE IN TEXT):
Figure 1: Health Effects of Microplastic Exposure chart........……………...........………pg.6
Figure 2: Graph of Deposition Rate...............................................................................pg.6
Figure 3: Graph showing breakdown of polyurethane by fungi ................................... pg.7
Figure 4: Leachate Treatment Process (Elsevier, 2023)............................................. pg. 10
Figure 5: MPs in Landfill Leachate (Elsevier, 2023).................................................... pg. 10
Flooding
The UK faces a very real threat of flooding with around 1 in 6 homes in the UK facing flood threats (Bayes Business School, 2023). There are 4 different types of flooding which are surface water flooding, drain and sewer flooding, coastal flooding and river flooding. The main two causes of this are rising sea levels and higher amounts of rainfall. Global warming affects rainfall as for every 1℃ of global warming, the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture which leads to more rainfall (Borenstein 2022). This can also lead to more severe weather and storms which results in more flooding.
Flooding and the damage it causes are affected by soil moisture, infrastructure, land use, seasonal snow cover, and the amount of heavy rain. Some places will be affected differently due to their weather conditions as well as their country's income. Unfortunately, there is climate injustice as many of the worst affected countries are not able to protect themselves as they have a lack of resources. In 2021 there were severe floods in Germany and Belgium that caused 125 deaths and severe damage to the countries. 30 billion was given by political leaders to help rebuild what was damaged but unfortunately, low-income countries do not receive this privilege as they do not have the funds or the support from other countries. Oxfam International's Executive Director, Gabriela Bucher had this to say on the matter, “Rich countries, especially the US and those in the EU, have failed to use their power and resources to meet their fair share of responsibility and their moral and legal obligations. Rich countries and many middle-income countries that have the ability to do so are not transitioning away from fossil fuels fast enough to keep warming below 1.5°C, leading to more losses, damages and suffering. Rich countries are not providing the necessary finance to support developing countries to leapfrog to renewable energy.”. This brings home how much impact our decisions can have on the environment as well as other humans. In the previous COP27 climate talks there has been a loss and damage fund agreed upon so that lower-income countries can receive the support they deserve (Walsh 2023).
There are a range of solutions that have been found to lessen the effects of flooding. Trees are one of the main natural ways to prevent flooding. Trees have a canopy which creates interception which slows the rate of rainfall. Tree roots help water to penetrate the soil which prevents surface water flooding. Trees are vital for cities as impermeable road surfaces and paved gardens in cities increase surface water flooding (Woodland Trust n.d.). Other ways humans can adapt to flooding is by reducing the risk by installing flooding defences in flood-prone areas and by anticipatory action, for instance, evacuating people before the flood (Walsh 2023).
Microplastics
Microplastics are plastics less than 5mm in length that are caused by plastic pollution (NOAA 2024). By 2050 it is expected that plastic pollution in the ocean will quadruple (WWF 2022). Microplastics can be found in a large selection of health and beauty products even dating back to around 50 years ago. The dangerous effects of microplastics were only recently found out and in America, President Obama signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 which banned microbeads in health and beauty products (NOAA 2024). Many marine animals can mistake microplastics for food and can end up eating it, this leads microplastics to enter the food chain and can be found in our food. Microplastics have also now been found in our drinking water as well as our fruit and veg (Gerresten 2023). The effect of microplastics is undeniable and if it's not treated soon can have a serious effect on our health and the environment.
As our game is centred around microplastics I plan on having the flooded environment caused by coastal flooding. As microplastics are greatly affecting the ocean and marine life having the first environment be caused by coastal flooding will make it possible to link the two themes together.
Microplastics in the urban environment
Given the area that I am creating is the urban section I wanted to specifically delve into if microplastics could make it into the atmosphere and what it could do to the human body.
My source covers how we get exposed to microplastics as well as the potential dangers we faced when exposed to them over a long period of time. We can effectively be exposed to microplastics through any source including but not limited to water, food sources, the atmosphere, and other forms of direct contact. The ways in which they can affect us are numerous- "Sharp microplastic particles can cause toxicity by physically stimulating the human body."- the digestive systems are affected when microplastics are ingested, and physical irritation to the gastrointestinal tract may eventually cause inflammation,"- we can use this as a mechanic in the game itself, if our character is exposed to too many pollutants in a short period of time they might be slowed because of the pain, to indicate this, the player character might hunch over or cover their stomach.
Figure 1. Health Effects of Microplastic Exposure chart.
My final source covers a few more severe health conditions exposure to MPs might cause. MP particulates have been collected in what scientists call atmospheric deposition samples which are containers of pure water that were positioned and covered in such a way as to let air blow into them catching any potential contaminants. It was discovered that Microplastics are indeed in the air both fibrous and non-fibrous meaning the sharp or jagged type that are more likely to damage cell membranes and induce systemic stress. Inhalation of these particles can, like I said, damage cells and cell structures potentially causing tumours to form because of the damaged cells and their inability to fix themselves properly meaning MPs are technically carcinogenic meaning they cause cancer whether its malignant or benign does not matter in this sense as they can both be dangerous.
Figure 2. Graph of Deposition Rate
Fungi’s Use in Degrading Plastics
My focus for my deliverables will be on the use of fungi to break down plastics. For this, I have looked into fungi that I can model my deliverables from, and from here I can build a fictional narrative within our story for my work that is based on real world phenomena.
Jasper Degenaars, a mycologist has been working on culturing fungi that can break down plastics. He explains that plastic is made of complex carbon structures, and that there are many species of fungi that have been shown to be able to survive on plastic alone. This isn't as simple as it seems however, as some species, like Pestalotiopsis microspora will only break down plastic as a last resort nutrient, meaning it has to be used in a controlled environment. (Dengenaars 2022).
Looking further into this, Pestalotiopsis microspora is capable of breaking down polyurethane, a commonly used plastic. A paper researching the effects of this fungi shows a graph in which we can see that a polyurethane solution was shown to have a significantly reduced optical density after just 8 days (Russell et al. 2011):
Figure 3. (Russell et al. 2011)
(For sake of visibility, we're most interested in the bottom two lines on this chart)
It is important to note that this research is on a much smaller scale than what is needed to make a significant impact on plastic waste. 448 tonnes of plastic were produced in 2015 alone (Parker 2022). A solution of polyurethane dissolving over 8 days in a glass flask is not enough. These organisms however show hope for a future where we can degrade plastic waste naturally.
In 2016, a research group in Japan found an organism called Ideonella Sakaiensis 201-F 6, a microbe that had two enzymes that can break down PET polymers, which is a type of polymer chain found in plastic. upon isolating the genes that code for these enzymes, they combined them, which made them 6 times more effective at PET breakdown (Thys et al. 2022). This research shows potential for the future use of genetic engineering in microplastic consumption.
Microplastics in Caves and their Impact on Erosion
My character I have in mind for this game would ideally reside in a cave, acting as a "safe-zone" for the main character, where they use fungi to make useful items for the player to buy and trade for. For this reason, I have looked into the impacts microplastics can have on caves themselves.
On Trindade Island, a volcanic island off of the coast of Brazil, researchers have found "plastic rocks", which showed how plastic has began to incorporate itself into the natural processes of rock formation. This team categorised these kinds of rock into different types, all of which shared similarities to sedimentary, clastic, and igneous rocks. These rocks have also been found in Hawaii, Britain, Italy and Japan (Berger 2023).
On top of this, microplastics found in riverbeds is thought to be speeding up coastal erosion, potentially due to their lower density in comparison to sand allowing them to be more buoyant. (Sliman, 2023). Combining this with the information above, in theory when these plastic rocks erode they could return the microplastics to the environment where they will speed up the erosion of natural structures.
These microplastics have made their way into cave systems. In a study, researchers found samples of microplastic in all caves examined (Balestra, Bellopede 2023). Floods have been shown to increase microplastic density in water in the Yangtze Estuary, backing up the claim that the cave flooding in the reference above caused this surge in microplastics (Chen et al. 2024).
Impacting on all of the above, 218 million people have been found to be at risk from plastic-aggravated flooding. Flooding in general can increase the risk of water-borne diseases like Cholera. The same article detailing this explains that this plastic pollution can kill marine life, pollute the air an disrupt the food chain (Marsh 2023).
What are Landfills and how they affect the environment
Landfills are places where waste is disposed of when it can't be recycled or composted. They're designed to protect the environment and human health by keeping waste separate from the surrounding soil, groundwater and air. This however, doesn't stop it from being harmful. Landfills produce terrible gases from the decaying organic waster creating a lot of decomposition gases, the most prominent, being CO2. This obviously is a pretty big contribution to global warming.
Microplastics in Landfills
Landfills produce a liquid known as leachate which seeps through the waste extracting and dissolving the waste. This can lead to contaminating groundwater, surface water and soil which poses a threat to human health as the environment as we may unintentionally ingest the toxic waste through the water.
Plastic waste that are dumped in landfills go through several abrasive activities which produce secondary microplastics. Microplastics can also enter these land fills from primary sources. Microplastics get trapped in fat, oil, grease and solid sludge when the leachate gets treated in wastewater treatment plants.
This diagram from an article on microplastics in landfill leachate demonstrates this process.
Figure 4. Leachate Treatment Process (Elsevier, 2023)
For plastic products, the best solution possible is to recycle them. Only 15 - 20% of all plastic waste can be recycled and approximately 21 - 42% is deposited in landfills. The same article has some data regarding the amount of microplastics found in samples taken from landfill leachate.
Figure 5. MPs in Landfill Leachate (Elsevier, 2023)
Solutions
Steps taken by organisations/ government
Supermarkets are charging for single use carrier bags
In 2018, the English and Scottish governments banned sale and production of microbeads in personal care products
In 2020, the English government banned the sale of plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds
Companies will be required to cover the cost of recycling and disposing of their packaging
Steps that can be taken by the individual
Avoid cosmetic products containing plastic beads.
Avoid single use plastics
Avoid buying synthetic clothing
Air dry synthetic clothing to reduce shedding of the plastics
Dispose of plastic items correctly through recycling
How am I going to use this research in my project?
I did some basic research of microplastics as our prompt focusses on the effects of microplastics on the food chain. In order for me to be able to accurately capture what the prompt is asking, I first need to make sure I understand what microplastics are and how they impact our health.
I did some more specific research on microplastics in landfill purely because I am designing a junkyard for my environment and to be able to adhere to the prompt I felt it would be useful to find how microplastics affect our waste. This led me to discovering that rain and waste come together to make leachate which is filled full of microplastics as shown in the table above. It was also brought to my attention that it's almost impossible to fully get rid of microplastics from leachate. I hope to find to a way to include my research on leachate by turning it into a boss mechanic.
Bibliography
Admin, 2023. Microplastics: Small Thing, Big Problem [online]. Froglife. Available at: https://www.froglife.org/2023/06/27/microplastics-small-thing-big-problem/ [Accessed 15 October 2024].
Balestra, V., Bellopede, R., 2023. Microplastics in caves: A new threat in the most famous geo-heritage in the world. Analysis and comparison of Italian show caves deposits [online]. Journal of Environmental Management, 342, pp.118189–118189. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37210820/ [Accessed 6 October 2024].
Berger, J.H., 2023. Scientists make ‘disturbing’ find on remote island: plastic rocks [online]. phys.org. Available at: https://phys.org/news/2023-03-scientists-disturbing-remote-island-plastic.html.
Chen, H. et al., 2024. Microplastics: A potential proxy for tracing extreme flood events in estuarine environments [online]. Science of The Total Environment, 918, p.170554. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724006910 [Accessed 6 October 2024].
Degenaars, J., 2022. Plastic Eating Mushrooms | A fantastic fungi solution to Earth’s waste? Outlawes, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UA_FcamHIU&t=449s [Accessed 6 October 2024].
Marsh, J., 2023. Nearly 220 Million at Risk From Plastic-Aggravated Flooding: Study [online]. Earth.org. Available at: https://earth.org/plastic-flooding/.
Parker, L., 2022. The World’s Plastic Pollution Crisis Explained | National Geographic Society [online]. education.nationalgeographic.org. Available at: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/worlds-plastic-pollution-crisis-explained/ [Accessed 6 October 2024].
Russell, J.R. et al., 2011. Biodegradation of Polyester Polyurethane by Endophytic Fungi [online]. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 77(17), pp.6076–6084. Available at: https://aem.asm.org/content/77/17/6076.full. [Accessed 6 October 2024].
Sliman, K., 2023. Microplastics may increase riverbed sediment movement, erosion | Penn State Engineering [online]. Psu.edu. Available at: https://news.engr.psu.edu/2023/fernandez-roberto-microplastics-riverbed-erosion.aspx [Accessed 6 October 2024].
Thys, T., Sardet, C., Esteban, E., 2022. Meet the microbes that could eat your trash - Tierney Thys and Christian Sardet [online]. www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m0YaE8uKcg [Accessed 6 October 2024].
Bayes Business School, 2023. One in six properties in England will be affected by flood risk by 2050, study suggests [Online]. Bayes Business School. Available at: https://www.bayes.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2023/may/one-in-six-properties-in-england-will-be-affected-by-flood-risk-by-2050-study-suggests [Accessed 8th October 2024]
Borenstein, S., 2022. Measuring climate change: It's not just heat, it's humidity [Online]. Physorg. Available at: https://phys.org/news/2022-01-climate-humidity.html#:~:text=That%27s%20because%20as%20the%20world,it%20pours%2C%22%20Ramanathan%20said [Accessed 8th October 2024]
Elsevier, 2023. Microplastics in landfill leachate: Sources, detection, occurrence, and removal [online]. National Library of Medicine. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10024173/#sec2title [Accessed 15 October 2024].
European Parliament, 2018. Microplastics: sources, effects and solutions [online]. European Parliament. Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20181116STO19217/microplastics-sources-effects-and-solutions [Accessed 15 October 2024].
Gerresten,J., 2023. How microplastics are infiltrating the food you eat [Online]. BBC Future. Available at:https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230103-how-plastic-is-getting-into-our-food [Accessed 8th October 2024]
NOAA, 2024. What are Microplastics? [Online]. National Ocean Service. Available at: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/microplastics.html [Accessed 8th October 2024]
S.L. Wright, 2020. Atmospheric microplastic deposition in an urban environment and an evaluation of transport [Online]. ScienceDirect. Available at:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019330351 [Accessed 8th October 2024]
Walsh, L., 2023. Climate change and flooding [Online]. Oxfam. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/oxfam-blog/climate-change-and-flooding/?pscid=ps_ggl_gr_Google+Grants+-+Blog_Blog+-+Climate+Change+&+Flooding&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsJO4BhDoARIsADDv4vDbJxUf9sH5heii3ps1jayILeJxjHIwV4PadK-eeQqQ18D9OR6ISrkaAvcSEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds [Accessed 8th October 2024]
Woodland Trust, n.d. Can woods and trees reduce flooding? [Online]./ Woodland Trust. Available at: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/flooding/ [Accessed 8th October 2024]
WWF, 2022. Ocean plastic pollution to quadruple by 2050, pushing more areas to exceed ecologically dangerous threshold of microplastic concentration [Online]. WWF. Available at: https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?4959466/Ocean-plastic-pollution-to-quadruple-by-2050-pushing-more-areas-to-exceed-ecologically-dangerous-threshold-of-microplastic-concentration [Accessed 8th October 2024]
Yongjin Lee, Jaelim Cho, Jungwoo Sohn, and Changsoo Kimcorresponding, 2023. Health Effects of Microplastic Exposures: Current Issues and Perspectives in South Korea [Online].National Library of Medicine. Available at:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10151227/#sec-a.n.ctitle [Accesssed 8th October 2024]
Illustrations
Figure 1: Scavengers Reign Screencap
Studio Titmouse, 2023. Scavengers Reign 1s5 [online image] WBD.com. Available at: https://press.wbd.com/na/image/scavengersreign105thedemeter11jpeg [Accessed 20th November 2024]
Figure 2: Graph showing breakdown of polyurethane by fungi
Russell, J.R. et al., 2011. Biodegradation of Polyester Polyurethane by Endophytic Fungi [online]. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 77(17), pp.6076–6084. Available at: https://aem.asm.org/content/77/17/6076.full.
Comments
Post a Comment