Survey Report on Public Awareness of Microfibers Pollution ...

HKUST iGEM 2020 HagBric

Survey Report on Public Awareness of Microfibers Pollution,

Clothing Preferences and Synthetic Biology

Overview Microfibers pose threat to both the environment and human health. A person could be exposed to microfibers by an array of sources, including clothing, food, cosmetics and even air. Microfibers pollution has become a commonplace due to textiles, manufacturing industry, fishing industry, packaging, face masks and so on. For all that various initiatives have been launched worldwide, namely abandoning plastic straws, the current situation demands our concerted effort. Therefore, we are trying to focus on the textile and fashion industry, in which we try to develop a new synthetic material, Hagfish Intermediate Filament (IF), using synthetic biology. In addition to circuit and experimental design, we would like to investigate the public's knowledge of sustainability and general clothing preferences, as well as opinions on our project, in order to have a holistic understanding. As a result, we have designed a questionnaire and now the results will be analyzed in this report.

Objectives To investigate the public awareness of microfibers pollution, sustainability, clothing preferences and opinions on our project among citizens so as to provide data for tackling the problem. Subjects 226 respondents filled in an online questionnaire from 23rd August to 19th October 2020. Methods 226 respondents were surveyed anonymously by convenience sampling online from. The data was collected and analyzed using Google Forms and Excel.


Results A. Age and gender structure

Of the 226 responses, 12 – 18 years old accounts for the majority of 40.3%, which is mainly composed of high school students as well as university undergraduates. The second highest group is aged between 19 – 25, who are university undergraduates or working people.

The respondents are 65% female and 32.3% male, with 2.7% of people prefer not to say.


B. Education level

In the survey population, secondary education takes up the largest proportion, at 49.1%. As survey is conducted online, results skew towards younger and well-educated respondents. C. Affiliation with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)

A vast majority of interviewees are not members of HKUST, which boost the credibility of the report.


D. Regional distribution

The samples are collected in Hong Kong, making Asia the most significant area in the survey. A minority are from North America, Europe, Africa and Australia/ Oceania. E. Awareness on Microfibers Pollution

i. Most people believe that clothing wastes are detrimental to our environment, where over 90% of people show their agreement by giving 3 and 4 out of 4.


ii. Nearly 6 out of 10 interviewees think that sea suffers the most because of clothing wastage. Also, land is the second-highest influenced area in people’s mind, with 3 out of ten people holding such belief.

F. General Preferences on Clothing

i. Nearly half of the population bought less than 4 pieces of clothing in the past 6 months, indicating less than a piece per month on average.


ii. As we can see, pricing, comfort and design are the top three determining

factors when consumers buy clothes.

iii. More than 70% of respondents discarded 0 – 4 pieces of clothing in the past 6 months, and 15% of respondents discarded 5 - 9 pieces. The other 10% discarded


iv. Damaged/ flawed, wrong sizes and dislike of clothes are the three major

reasons behind discarding clothing. It is noticeable that more than one-fifth of people who did not throw away clothes in the past 6 months.

v. More than 40% of respondents believe that the annual textile waste worldwide is up to 13 million tonnes, which is actually the correct estimated amount.

They were damaged/had flaws 衣服有破損或瑕疵

I do not like them 我不喜歡那些衣服

I did not throw away any clothes last 6 months 在過去六個月我並沒有丟棄衣服

They stopped being trendy 衣服跟不上潮流

I have too many clothes 我有太多衣服

They were of wrong sizes 衣服大小不適合

I outgrew some sizing on clothes, then I donated them to be handed down to friends.


vi. The most ubiquitous clothing materials are cotton, polyester and nylon.

vii. Most respondents of over 40% would only wear clothes made of polyester in special occasion, including doing exercise. Approximately one-third of the population would wear polyester clothing once or twice a week.


viii. Over 95% of interviewees think that microfibers is deteriorating the environment, in which 20% of them believe it is very harmful.

ix. 45% of people believe that microfibres would moderately affect their health. It worths our attention that a few people do not think that Microfibers affect health at all.


x. The majority of interviewees have heard of fast fashion, at approximately 70%.

xi. Nearly 6 out of 10 people only buy clothes from fast fashion brands in Hong Kong sometimes, one-third says they do not, and only a minority of 15% says they will.


xii. An overwhelming majority of respondents of over 95% do not know any policies of efforts in reducing clothing wastage from the Government or NGOs.

xiii. Only 9 out of 226 interviewees could name some non-governmental organisations and/or corporations dedicated in reducing clothing wastage. These include Greenpeace, The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA), Levi’s, Nike Hong Kong and The Salvation Army.


xiv. Most respondents rated 4 – 6 in the scale of 6, are willing to alter their

consumption behavior in order to sustain their cities. Over 40% of them gave a 5 to show their willingness to change.

xv. The majority are willing to pay extra HK$1 – 50 more for a more sustainable t-shirt, accounting for more than 40%. Around one-third of the respondents would pay HK$50 – 100 more for sustainable options.


xvi. Discussion The majority of respondents (over 90%) are aware of the environmental problems brought by clothing waste. In reality, clothing wastage is one of the culprits leading to land, air and sea pollution. Also, most of them (over 40%) have a correct guess on the annual textile waste globally, which is 13 million tonnes, indicating that interviewees have accurate background knowledge of the issue. They realize one of the reasons for such pollution – fast fashion as well, nearly 70% of people have heard of them before. However, they lack detailed understanding regarding microfibers pollution, including the causes and current policies. Their somehow fail to execute measures to protect the environment from microfibers pollution from a daily basis. It is evident that over half of the respondents buy more than 5 pieces of clothes while more than a quarter of them throw away more than 5 pieces of clothes in the past 6 months. As pollution by microfibers brought not only by production, but also from daily washing and end-life disposal, a significant amount of pollutants is released based the clothing habits of interviewees. An alarming proportion, only 9 out of 226 respondents, can name government policies or NGOs that are working in this field. Another point deserving our attention is that polyester is the second most commonly used materials in clothing and people wear them when they exercise. According to statistics, 496,030 microfibers can be shed in wash per 6kg of wash, which means that we are already worsening the microfibers pollution solely by polyester, not to say other polluting fibers based on general clothing habits. (source: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-plastic-pollution-polyester-washing-machine) Nevertheless, the willingness to adopt more sustainable habits of the majority is satisfactory, of which 80% of interviewees are pleased to pay more for a greener t-shirt and approximately 90% would like to alter their consumption behaviour for sustainability. It is inspiring to discover that pricing, comfortability and design are the leading factors in consumers’ purchases. These are the areas we may work on in order to design a sustainable, yet affordable, comfortable and trendy clothes for the general public.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-plastic-pollution-polyester-washing-machine

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-plastic-pollution-polyester-washing-machine


G. Opinions on our project

i. The vast majority have not seen hagfish before, which takes up over 70%.

ii. Most people of 65% believe that hagfish may or may not be able to produce

textiles for textiles and clothing. Only one-fifth think that it can.


iii. Interviewees are mostly neutral on using genetically modified organisms to produce fabric, taking up 40% of the population. While another 40% are concerned and very concerned about using GMOs in textile industry.

iv. The majority are neutral on the possibility of replacing the use of common textile materials by hagfish intermediate filament. While 30% and 20% of people believe that the feasibility is 4 and 2 respectively on a scale of 5.


v. Interviewees are mostly divided into two groups, which are “maybe” and

“yes”, each accounting for more than 45%.

vi. People support transgenic products mainly because they are more environmentally friendly, sustainable and innovative, which take up approximately 80%, 70% and 30% respectively.

They are environmentally friendly 它們對環境友善

They are cheap 它們的價錢較便宜


vii. The major reasons behind disagreeing with the use of transgenic products

are unethical, more expensive than regular products and low credibility, accounting for 40.5%, 38.7% and 21.6% respectively.

viii. Over 60% of people would like to learn more about our project and our team.

They are not ethical 它們不道德

They are not attractive 它們不吸引

They do not have high credibility 它們的可靠性低

They are worse than existing products on market

They are not expensive它們價錢較昂貴


ix. Discussion Hagfish, which is the main subject of our project, is little known to the public. According to our questionnaire, more than 70% of people have not seen hagfish before. Yet, most of them are quite optimistic and open-minded in terms of our project which is to synthesize hagfish intermediate filaments, of which one-fifth think it is possible and over three-fifth think it is maybe feasible to the make fibers for textiles and clothing out of hagfish. Also, respondents are willing to promote use of potential biodegradable hagfish fiber to their friends and families, where “yes” and “maybe” each account for over 40%. This maybe attributable to the nature of our interviewees who are relatively younger and more innovative. It is encouraging to our project, which hopefully one day, we can put it into real practice. That being said, opinions are split on the use of transgenic products. Respondents support transgenic products mainly because of its benefits, which include environmental friendliness and sustainability. Yet, unethical, expensive, doubtful credibility are the major reasons why people hesitate. We understand these concerns and would try to address each issue with our effort.

Conclusion Throughout our investigation, we have collected significant first-hand data regarding the public awareness on microfibers and clothing, as well as comments on our project. We realize that most people have basic understanding towards microfibers pollution, yet they hardly take action in protecting our environment. Luckily, we discover that the majority are willing to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle. Therefore, we are focusing on science communication, which aims to encourage the general public to live a greener life – to take real action, and also as a way to promote synthetic biology to address concerns regarding the use of transgenic products. Multiple approaches have been put forward in an attempt to educate the public, environmental talks, card games, comics and social media pages are cases in point. We, as iGEMers, are responsible for the promotion of synthetic biology and improving the quality of life for the mankind.


Appendix Extract of the questionnaire (red words are the choices provided for the questions)

Questionnaire on Hagfish filaments Hi, we are a group of undergraduate students from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) participating in this year's (2020) iGEM competition, an international synthetic biology contest. Our project aims to produce textile material from hagfish intermediate filaments (IF). This questionnaire targets to collect the public's knowledge of sustainability and general preferences with regards to clothing, as well as opinions on our project, which will help us understand the problem better. This questionnaire takes around 5 minutes to complete and we truly appreciate your contribution to our project, and you may win the chance to get a small prize from us! 您好！我們是一群來自香港科技大學的本科生，參加了今年（2020）關於合成生物學

的國際遺傳工程機器設計競賽(iGEM)。我們旨在以盲鰻的中間纖體維製作紡織材料。

此問卷將收集大眾就服裝可持續性的認知、服裝喜好和對於我們研究的意見。請大家

以約 5分鐘填寫以下問卷，讓我們對議題有更全面的了解，充心感謝大家的支持。你

更有機會贏得一份小禮物!

1. To what extent do you agree that clothing wastes harms our environment? 你在多大程度上認同紡織廢料影響環境？

On a scale of 1 to 4, 1 = Strongly disagree, 4 = Strongly agree

2. In your opinion, which area is mostly affected by clothing wastage? 你認為以下哪個空間最受紡織廢料影響？

Land / Air / Sea / Others

3. In the past 6 months, how many pieces of clothing did you buy? 在過去六個月，你買了多少件衣服？

0-4 / 5-9 / 10-14 / 15-19 / 20-14 / More than 24

4. What are your top 3 concerns when buying clothes? You may choose less than 3 options. 在選購衣服時，你最關注哪三個因素？你可以填選少於三項。

Price / How it feels on my skin / Color / Current trends / Comfort / Need for maintenance / Brand / Sustainability / Design / Others

5. In the past 6 months, how many pieces of clothing did you discard? 在過去六個月，你丟棄了多少件衣服？

0-4 / 5-9 / 10-14 / 15-19 / 20-14 / More than 24


6. Why did you throw away your clothes? 為什麼你會丟棄你的衣服？

They were of wrong sizes / They were damaged/had flaws / I have too many clothes / They stopped being trendy / I do not like them / I did not throw away clothes last 6 months

7. What do you think is the global amount of textile waste each year? 你認為每年全球的紡織廢料量有多少？

1 million ton / 8 million tonnes / 13million tonnes / 19 million tonnes

8. What are the most common (top 3) materials of the clothes you own? 你的衣服最常用以下哪三項質料製成？

Acrylic / Bast fibres / Cellulose fibres / Cotton / Leather / Nylon / Polyester / Silk / Wool / Others

9. The leading fabric in most sportswear is polyester. How often do you wear clothes made of polyester? 大部份運動服以聚酯纖維製造。你多常穿著以聚酯纖維製成的衣服？

Every day / 1-2 times a week / 3-4 times a week / 5-6 times a week / Only for special occasions (e.g. doing sports)

10. Materials like polyester and nylon releases microfibres into the environment. On a scale from 1 to 5, to what extent do you think microfibres is deteriorating the environment? 聚酯纖維和尼龍等材料會在環境中釋放超細纖維。你在多大程度上認為超細纖

維正在危害環境？

On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 = No harm at all, 5 = Very harmful

11. To what extent do you think microfibres affect your health? 你在多大程度上認為超細纖維會影響你的健康？

On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 = No harm at all, 5 = Very harmful

12. Have you ever heard of fast fashion? 你有沒有聽過速食時裝？

Yes / No

13. There are fast fashion brands in Hong Kong such as H&M, Zara and so on. Do you like buying clothes from them? 在香港營運的速食時裝品牌有很多，其中包括 H&M和 Zara 。你喜不喜歡購買

它們的衣服？

Yes / Sometimes / No


14. Do you know any policies or efforts to reduce clothing wastage from the Government or NGOs? 你知不知道任何政府或非政府機構在減少紡織廢料上的政策或措施？

Yes / No

15. If you answered "yes" to the previous question, what is (are) the name(s) of the policies/NGOs? 如上題回答”是“，有關政策或非政府機構的名稱是什麼？

16. How much would you be willing to change your consumption behaviour to help with

sustainability in the city? 你在多大程度上願意為城市的可持續性發展去改變自己的消費習慣？

On a scale of 1 to 6, 1 = Not willing at all, 5 = Very willing

17. Suppose a t-shirt costs 100 HKD (12.9 USD). How much would you be willing to pay for more sustainable options? 假設一件 T恤的價錢為 100港元（12.9美金），你會願意為更可持續的選項付

出多少金錢？

Not willing to pay more / $101-$150 / $151-$200 / $201-$250 / $251-$300 / $301-$350 / More than $400

18. Have you ever seen the marine animal shown below? 你有沒有見過以下的海洋生物？

Source: Mark Conlin / Alamy. 資料來源：Mark Conlin / Alamy

(https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/14-fun-facts-about-hagfish-77165589/) Yes / No

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/14-fun-facts-about-hagfish-77165589/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/14-fun-facts-about-hagfish-77165589/


19. The animal shown above is hagfish, our subject of study for the project. Do you believe it can produce fibres for textiles and clothing? 以上是我們研究的生物-盲鰻。你是否相信牠能製造紡織和衣物使用的纖維？

Yes / No / Maybe

20. What is your opinion on using genetically modified organisms (GMO) to produce fabric? 你對於利用基因改造生物製作纖維有何看法？

On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 = Not concerned at all, 5 = Very concerned

21. If hagfish's secretion is used as clothing material, to what extent do you think it can replace the commonly used textile materials on market? 如果盲鰻的黏液能用作衣物材料，你在多大程度上認為其能取代現時市面上常

見的紡織材料？

Small / Large

22. Our team is hoping to make textiles from hagfish slime, would you encourage your family or friends to buy our (still imaginary) product if the slime is biodegradable? 我們的隊伍希望以盲鰻黏液製作紡織物，如果黏液是可生物分解的，你會否鼓

勵你的家人和朋友購買我們的成品（現在還在構思階段）？

Yes / No / Maybe

23. If you support transgenic products, what are the reasons? If you do NOT, skip this question. 為什麼你會支持基因改造產品？如果你並不支持，請跳過此問題。

They are sustainable / They are environmentally friendly / They are better than the original product / They are cheap / They are innovative / They are trendy / Others

24. If you do NOT support transgenic products, what are the reasons? 為什麼你不支持基因改造產品？

They are not ethical / They are expensive / They are not attractive / They do not have high credibility / They are worse than existing products on market / Others

25. Would you like to learn more about HagBric? 你有興趣更深地認識 HagBric嗎？

Yes / No


Thank you for your help! 感謝您的幫忙！

This is the end of our questionnaire and we are grateful for your help. If you found this questionnaire interesting, please do us a favor and spread this to your friends. We really appreciate it. To learn more about us and our project, follow our Instagram account (@hkustigem2020), like us on Facebook (@HagBricHKUSTiGEM2020) and subscribe to our YouTube Channel (iGEM 2020 HagBric). Thank you :) 您已完成問卷，感謝您的幫忙。如果您對問卷的內容感興趣，歡迎轉發。如更深入認

識我們和和我們的研究，歡迎追蹤 Instagram帳戶 (@hkustigem2020)，讚好 Facebook

專頁(@HagBricHKUSTiGEM2020) 和訂閱 Youtube頻道(iGEM 2020 HagBric)。感謝！

Survey Report on Public Awareness of Microfibers Pollution ...

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