INTERESTS/GATEWAY

During my senior year at Harrison High School, I was in a class called Engineering Design and Development. In this class I had to investigate, design, write, and implement a research paper. I choose the topic of plastic pollution because over the course of 50 years, the world's plastic consumption/waste had gone up tremendously. I looked into the causes behind plastic pollution and determined that humans not knowing what kind of plastic they had led to them throwing it away instead of recycling it. To help combat this, I developed a Raman Spectroscopy plastic identifier to inform consumers of plastic what kind of plastic they were using so they could effectively recycle. In turn, my prototype would also benefit the recycling plants like Rumpke because the plastic would already be organized by type of plastic so they could save money and efforts and not have to organize the plastic themselves. During this year long class, I learned about spectroscopy by going to UC and studying under Professor Necati Kaval. In addition, I learned all about Rumpke's plastic recycling plant by visiting their facilities. My project has impacted my life because it has opened my eyes to the problems with plastic recycling and ways I could improve it. In addition, my gateway has made me more conscious about my plastic consumption. Below is my paper all about the research behind my prototype and how my prototype works.