Murdering Microbeads Year 5
What did we do? Abstract We conducted an investigation to find out if selected facial scrubs contain plastic/polypropylene microbeads and if so, how much. Why did we do this? We did this investigation because we watched a video about the effects of plastic on marine life. We were shocked to find out that the microbeads from facial scrubs are resulting in the pollution of the oceans and the death of much marine life. How did we do this? We spread the same amount of facial scrub on a cotton bud and spread it evenly onto a square centimetre grid on a glass slide. Then we put the slide under the microscope and looked through the microscope and counted the microbeads on the square centimetre. What did we find out? We found out that True Essentials had the most microbeads in it with an amazing average of 120 microbeads on the square centimetre and that Nivea had the least microbeads on the square centimetre with a number of 88. However from our research notes we found that the microbeads in True Essentials were not in fact plastic microbeads they were crushed walnuts and therefore True Essentials is better for the environment than Nivea and Garnier. Conclusion Our conclusion is that people should not use these facial scrubs - Garnier and Nivea which have plastic microbeads, but True Essentials has crushed walnut shells which is better for the environment and our oceans. The first two scrubs have a crazy amount of plastic microbeads in them that can kill fish in the ocean. We have told our parents not to use the facial scrubs that have the ingredient polyethylene in them as we don t want to further pollute the oceans and destroy marine life. 1 P a g e
Introduction Our group all have an interest in fashion and beauty products. We also liked the idea of saving fish and other sea animals. Earlier in the year we looked at photos of dead whales on the beach because of malnutrition from eating too many plastic microbeads. This made our group want to save sea animals even more! Also we wanted to find out more about which plastic microbeads were in each facial scrubs and whether they were natural or artificial. Background Research Research Findings The UK government has already banned microbeads. A petition by Greenpeace has more than 300 000 people sign it. When sea foods with plastic microbeads are caught, you could be eating a fish with toxic microbeads in it. Microbeads will soon be banned from toothpaste and soaps but sadly not facial scrubs where they are mostly found. Information gathered from experts who have background knowledge Our teacher went around town looking for a beauty salon. She found one called Ella Bache in Bowral and talked to the beauty expert in Ella Bache about microbeads. The expert said that six months ago the Australian government banned all plastic microbeads in beauty products in beauty salons. Also an environmentalist called Tim Silverwood came to our school and talked to us about plastic and the effect on wild life in and out of the water. Tim also said we want a better bigger environment not a world filled to the top with garbage. In addition we read on the back of the facial scrub containers and found out that Garnier and Nivea contain polyethylene but True essentials contains crushed walnuts shells, which is natural. 2 P a g e
Aim The purpose/aim of our experiment is to investigate and determine which facial scrubs have the most microbeads in them and whether these microbeads are made from plastic polyethylene. We aim to use the information we find to advertise the damaging effects of facial scrubs which have microbeads to convince people not to use these products. Hypothesis If we change the different types of facial scrubs and measure the amount of microbeads under the microscope, we predicted that the facial scrub with the most microbeads and which would be the most harmful to the environment would be Garnier. 3 P a g e
Independent Variable Variables We changed the different types of facial scrubs because we wanted to find out which facial scrubs have the most microbeads in them. Dependent Variable We measured the amount of microbeads in one square centimetre for each of the facial scrubs. Controlled Variables What we kept the same was the amount of facial scrub we put on the ear bud and then on to the glass slide, the type of microscope, the glass slide and the number of trial tests. 4 P a g e
Methods/Procedures Step 1: We turned the microscope on Step 2: We got an ear bud and put half a centimetre of facial scrub on the ear bud Step 3: We put that ear bud on to the glass slide and smeared the facial scrub around the square. Step 4: We looked through the microscope and counted the microbeads on the square centimetre. Step 4: We took the slide out and washed the slide with a special cloth so that microbeads wouldn t go down the drain and harm the fish and other marine creatures in the ocean. 5 P a g e
Table of Results & Explanation Bridget Schereck Murdering Microbeads Facial Scrub Test One Test Two Test Three Average A. Garnier B. Nivea C. True Essentials 104 109 131 115 79 89 95 88 130 123 132 128 Explanation Our results show that True essentials had the most microbeads with a massive average of 120 microbeads! Garnier also had a massive average of 115 microbeads! Nivea, the most popular scrub only had an average of 88. We were shocked about the number of microbeads in all of our scrubs. However from our research notes we found that the microbeads in True Essentials were not in fact plastic microbeads but instead, were crushed walnuts shells and that therefore, True essentials is better for the environment. 6 P a g e
Fair Testing and Sample Size To make our investigation fair we had to keep everything the same except the facial scrub brands. We kept the same amount of facial scrub on each cotton bud and also each glass slide that goes under the microscope had to be a square centimetres in size. Risk Assessment o Keep facial scrubs away from young children. o Don t put facial scrubs in your eye/face. o Take turns and don t rush. o Make sure you have all the information that you need. o Avoid washing microbeads cream down the sink which would add to water pollution. o Use glass microscope slides with caution to avoid cutting hands. o Don t put the facial scrub on other people s face. 7 P a g e
Amount of Microbeads Year 5 Murdering Microbeads Graph & Explanation Murdering Microbeads 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Average Garnier 104 109 131 115 Nivea 79 89 95 88 True Essentials 130 123 132 128 Graph Explanation As you can see in Test 1 Garnier (blue) had 104 microbeads; Nivea (green) had 79 microbeads and True Essentials (yellow) had 130 microbeads. In Test 2 Garnier had 109 microbeads; Nivea had 89 and True Essentials had 123 microbeads. In Test 3 Garnier had 131 microbeads; Nivea had 95 microbeads and True Essentials had 132 microbeads. We did the Average by adding each of the scrubs results and then dividing them by three. So Garnier had an average of 115; Nivea had an average of 88 and True Essentials had an average of 128. However from our research notes we found that the microbeads in True Essentials were not in fact plastic microbeads but instead they were crushed walnut shells and that therefore True Essentials is good for the environment. 8 P a g e
Discussion We would take turns in looking through the microscope and counting the microbeads and we would also take turns in washing and putting facial scrubs on the glass slide. We were surprised that Nivea had the least Microbeads in it and True Essentials had none, in fact True Essentials had crushed walnut shells in it therefore True Essentials is the best for the environment. That meant that Garnier had the most plastic microbeads in it and it supported our hypothesis. Any ideas for future work We could improve our strategy of counting the microbeads with different devices so it we could count them more thoroughly. And if we ever had a chance to do it again we would like to test toothpaste as well because it unfortunately has microbeads in it too. Discussion continued o Fairness, bias, accuracy, replication o Fairness To be fair we changed only one thing in our experiment which was the different types of facial scrub and kept everything else the same. o Bias On the back of the Nivea facial scrub it said that the facial scrub contained no microbeads in it. o Accuracy To be fair we tried to keep the same amount of facial scrub we put on the square centimetre glass slide although we tried to count all the microbeads, it is hard to be 100% accurate due to human error. o Any ideas for future work--- If we did the experiment again we would like to test different facial scrubs and also test tooth paste because that has microbeads in it too. 9 P a g e
Conclusion Do your results support or disprove your hypothesis? Our hypothesis was that we predicted that the Garnier facial scrub was going to have the most microbeads per square centimetre and therefore would be the most harmful. We predicted this because we read the back of the bottle and it said it contained polyethylene microbeads and is sponsored by the microbeads company. We thought that True essentials were going to be the best for the environment by having the least number of microbeads because True Essentials sound like they re true to the environment and we were correct. Although True essentials had the most microbeads when counted, these fragments were in fact crushed walnut shells and are therefore not harmful to our oceans like plastic microbeads. So, we can conclude that True essentials is the facial scrub to use in the future. References http://beatthemicrobead.org/en/?gclid=ckrx6vexn84cfqqbvqodi9u AlA http://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/plastic-microbeads-inbeauty-products-are-causing-damage-to-environment/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/microbead http://storyofstuff.org/plastic-microbeads-ban-the-bead/ http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/16829/20150925/ocean -pollution-8-trillion-microbeads-day-alone.htm 10 P a g e
Acknowledgements 1) Teacher: Mrs Venish provided us with our equipment from Frensham laboratory and gave us new ideas for research and future work. 2) Parents: Dr Ahern, Dr Veleba, Mr Schereck, Mrs Schereck, Mrs Linde, our parents helped us with providing equipment and with background information. 3) Outside expert: Beauty Expert from Ella Bache beauty salon, our teacher went in and asked her about microbeads and she said that the Australian government banned all microbead products in beauty salons but there is still a lot around. 11 P a g e