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I came across term KAYA YEI, this means a female porter in Ghana. They would carry heavy baskets filled with fast fashion waist around the matrkets or from one place to another. Baskets are up to 50kg heavy.
I had an image of these women being dragged by the burden of theiir job and their polluted environment.
Looking back at my essay I identified some key words and ideas
"Long synthetic strands burried deep in sand and dragged out by tides"
I was curios what does a synthetic tentacle look like.
microplastics
experiment
24th January
experiment how do I find microplastics?
using a prompts generated by Chat GPT:
I will need a clean glass with water, brown coffee filter and salt.
I decided to start with ordinary household dust.
I dissolved salt in a warm water. I ran a finger over a top of picture frame and then I dipped my finger with the dust on it into the glass with water. after mixing the dust into water a little then let it stand for a few minutes, i could se some heavier particles sinking tio the bottom of the glass. The AI prompt suggested the microplastics are likely to stay in the top layer of the solution. After few minutes I carefully poured the liquid over a brown coffee filter trying not to disturb the sediment. I allowed the filter to dry. A the same time I poured the remaining muck over another filter.
I created photos of the experiment
1 - off the fluff ball
2 - all around the filters
3 - i used a cello-tape to lift any fluff and/or dust from the filters
4 - i used more cello-tape and patted walls in my kitchen for more dust.
5 - I placed both the filters and the cello-tape samples under electronic magnifier.
Conclusion:
I have found micro-plastics in my kitchen.
If there are microplastics in my kitchen dust they are really everywhere.
Microplastics are an indicator of a second nature - of man-made environment. this challenges human-nature boundaries and challenges modern consumerism and disposable culture.
It may be valuable to explore ideas and theory surrounding post-humanism, antropocentrism and ecocentrism.
Base on Chat GPT answer, the colourful small fibres without core are likely to be microplastics.
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