Salesian student highlights negative health effects of microplastics
Transition Year student Dara Cronin has conducted research on how dangerous microplastics are
TRANSITION Year student at Salesian Secondary College in Pallaskenry, Dara Cronin's project entitled ‘The Dangers and Detection of Microplastics’ has qualified for BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.
Dara worked on the project alone and it's in the Health and Wellbeing category. He explained: “I researched the negative health effects of microplastics and I’m trying to raise awareness of their negative health effects.
“I also discovered a cheap technique to identify microplastics in water that doesn’t have much research done on it. I hope to do experiments on this method to prove that it works and to see what it’s limitations are.”
Dara said he was “happy” and “surprised” that he qualified because he saw how high the standard is for projects in the competition last year.
The Transition Year student is looking forward to taking part in the large public exhibition. Dara hopes to raise awareness of the health risks associated with microplastics and to find a cheap way of identifying microplastics in water, provided that at the end of his experiments he's confident that it works.
Dara added: “I’ve done a few experiments to see whether the microplastic detection technique works but I haven’t done enough experiments to find out the exact limitations of it so far.
“I’ve done lots of research on how dangerous microplastics are. I chose this topic because I see how common it is for water bottles to be made out of soft plastic and I could only imagine how many people consume microplastics on a daily basis. Dara started working on the project in mid November and said he has quite a bit of work to do before the exhibition.
Dara plans to spend his remaining time ahead of the competition working on the design of a poster for the presentation of his project. “I’ll have to spend the next few weeks finishing it and sticking on the last few things and adding the finishing touches,” stated Dara.