Week of March 22nd

 Hello Everyone!

Last week I ventured over to Tres Rios to do some research and exploring. What a great area! The Tres Rios is where the Salt River, Gila River and Agua Fria River join together. It's a pretty large area and is right near the Phoenix Raceway in Avondale. I choose an area on the river bank that looked like it might collect trash as the rivers meet. 

I choose a 20ftx20ft area to collect trash. It took me about an hour to collect trash from the water and near the water. During my pick up I collected:

16 Plastic Bottles (whole/partial pieces)

6 Aluminum Cans

6 Glass Bottles

1 Bunch of wire/fishing line

16 Pieces of styrofoam

1 Latex Glove

5 Paper Products

26 Miscellaneous plastic

I'm mostly looking for one time use plastics. I'm still collecting the other data for now to ensure I have a good idea of the types of trash. Its safe to assume some of the trash was left behind by people and that not all of it came from the river. (Side note: I expected more masks/gloves given the pandemic but only found one latex glove)

First site visit! Week of 3/7/21

Hope everyone's week has been well! I am excited for Spring Break as it will give me a chance to go to a few locations to survey the types of trash present. This week I went to the canal off of 7th avenue and Campbell avenue to survey the types of trash in the canal. 

9 water bottles

1 cigarrette pack

2 shoes

1 backpack

1 Clorox bleach bottle

2 grocery bag

1 chip bag

9 styrofoam pieces

1 paper cup

6 aluminum cans

1 steel can

3 glass bottles

3 plastic containers

My hypothesis needs to be adjusted to reflect the physical data gathering. I'm hypothesizing that one time use plastics will be the primary source of waste present in waterways. Based off my initial data gathering, it appears that hypothesis will be correct. I will be returning to the same site bi-weekly. Below is a sample of one-time use plastics.

Research Proposal-Waste in our Local Waterways

Waste in our Local Waterways

I decided to select this topic based on the amount of trash and pollution I have been seeing within Phoenix. I’d like my research to start locally and eventually lead to how it ends up in the ocean, specifically the great pacific garbage patch. Currently, there is no solution in regards to the clean up of debris/waste within our oceans. We’ve only begun discovering the amount of waste present.

I believe this topic is significant as waste and pollution have a significant impact within the ecosystem. Plants and wildlife are being affected. Animals eat the toxins from waste and perish from it or continue to pass the chemicals up the food chain until eventually, it reaches humans. Studying waste in our environment could lead to the implementation of different, less harmful products and save the lives of animals living in those environments. The research conducted could provide insight into what is being discarded, if those materials can be recycled and the potential to find ways to reduce our waste impact.

In order to measure the data from my research question, I plan to choose several sites within Phoenix, visit them on a weekly/biweekly basis and determine the types of waste present at the location. Each visit, I will collect the waste and dispose of it properly and again measure what waste is present. This will provide insight into how much waste accumulates in that area within a specific time period. I plan to document the data and begin building a spreadsheet with the types of waste present.

Name	I/D/C	Units	Description
Site Visit Frequency (Time)	Independent Variable	Weeks	The amount of visits done
Number of pieces of Waste	Dependent Variable	1 piece=1 unit	Number of pieces at each site visit
Location	Controlled	-	Sites at which research is conducted

 

Research Question: What are the primary sources of waste that reach local waterways?

Hypothesis: If we can determine the type of waste present at several sites throughout the city, then we can look at preventing further damage to local ecosystems.

I believe the majority of waste that will be found at site visits will be one time use plastics. Other items may include Styrofoam, aluminum and paper.

*Photo taken from https://www.britannica.com/science/plastic-pollution