Treating Our Uniformed Microplastics

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This week the team and I have been treating our circle uniformed microplastics with alcohol. Once the microplastics are completely dried, they were placed on PIA, PF, and TSA plates to test for contamination. So far, only PP, Plastic #5 has been tested and PVC, Plastic #3 has also been examined. Both have shown no sign of contamination which is a good thing, and it means that we are able to continue on with our next phase of the experiment which is to start the incubation step over the winter break that is coming up. However, we are still waiting on LDPE, Plastic #4 to dry from the alcohol that was used to treat it. At the moment, it is still not dry, so we are waiting for that to happen then, after that is done we can place them on PIA, PF, and TSA plates and make sure there is no contamination on Plastic #4, if that is the case then we will be able to start the co-incubation process.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 18, 2018 at 9:39 PM

    It just occurred to me that I don’t know where we’re going to get the culture from for your bacteria to coincubate with since the one that we had in the broth is dead. You guys made grating the plastics seem so scary and difficult, but I gotta tell you that I think that I’d much rather get after them with a power tool that a stinking hole punch. My hand was sore the rest of the day. The contamination tests turned out great. It will be good to get better acquainted with some of the protocols that I wasn’t here for. Especially while you and Maria are still here. I guess I’m only just realizing how short two years is for research. Do you think that you’ll have gotten everything that you had hoped to done before it’s time for you to leave the project?

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