Summer 2018

Aimee Caine, School of Art, has been awarded the University’s Environmental Award for developing her project to get children involved in reducing plastic pollution.

The Highly Commended prize was awarded to a group of students from CEM for their work exploring the use of synthetic fuels in Heavy Duty vehicles (HDVs) to reduce associated carbon emissions and air pollution.

Now in its fourth year, the Environmental Award aims to reward and showcase inspiring environmental projects at the university, and promote sustainability in the curriculum. The Award is has been developed by the University’s Environment Team, with a panel judges from the School of Environment and Technology, the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, the School of Art Design and Media, the School of Health Sciences, the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, Brighton Business School, the Centre for Learning and Teaching and the Green Growth Platform. It is awarded twice in the academic year, at both the Summer and Winter Graduation Ceremonies.

This year’s winner Aimee, BA 3D Design and Craft, School of Art, will receive a £200 cash prize. Aimee’s final year project addresses an issue that has become a recent global focus; ocean plastic pollution. Her project aims to raise awareness of plastic pollution through encouraging children to protect their environment and collect plastic through the Plastic Hunter children’s book and ‘Plastic Hunter Kit’, a specially designed kit for children to collect and record plastic, including a kit bag, plastic diary, sieve, net and magnifying jar.  Aimee also created one of the books characters, ‘Wilbert the Whale’, as a solar powered buoy that filters water for micro-plastic.

Aimee said “Winning the Environmental Award is a huge honour, it means a lot to know that my project has been well received and the message I am trying to convey comes across. Plastic pollution is a huge global issue at the moment and to have any chance of saving our oceans we need to start acting now. Using Wilbert The Whale and my children’s Plastic Hunting Kit I hope to inspire a younger generation of Eco-warriors, who view plastic as a precious material to be treated with respect rather than as waste. Winning the award not only provides the project with recognition but it also motivates me to take my project further and get it into production so that I can start paving the way forward for the next generation to save our oceans.” Aimee pictured above with her Environmental Award certificate at her Graduation.

Find out more about Aimee’s project on her website: https://www.aimeecaine.com/.

A Highly Commended award has been given to Rebecca Desmond (MEng Aeronautical Engineering), Matthew Furr (MEng Automotive Engineering), Luke Middleton (MEng Mechanical Engineering) and Chloe Taylor (MEng Aeronautical Engineering), all from the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics for their joint final year masters project.

The group said “Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDV) emissions are currently an unsolved problem in which our team are passionate about identifying a unique solution. Our work has driven further research by the University which will begin in the coming academic year and we hope will continue to yield positive results. We are honoured to have received the Highly Commended Award and would like to thank the Environmental Award team for recognising our work. This will help raise awareness of a significant problem for our and future generations. Finally, we would like to thank the Advanced Engineering Centre for the opportunity to be involved with this project”.

Their project aimed to understand if synthetic fuels offer a suitable alternative to electrification of HDV’s, which is not currently feasible, to reduce pollution, carbon emissions and their impact on the environment. Synthetic fuels offer an alternative as they resemble fossil fuels chemically but do not release C0₂ and other harmful toxins, reducing their environmental impact.

Matthew, Chloe, Rebecca and Luke pictured above at their Graduation.

Winter 2018 joint winners: Zoe Williams, BSc (Hons) Nursing (School of Health Sciences) and Hannah Hansell, MA Sustainable Design (School of Art).

Zoe’s dissertation was a systematic literature review which identified themes of glove miss use in health care settings, and the potential to change and reduce this, reducing waste and plastic use which could have significant cost and waste savings.

Zoe said: “There is so much waste in the NHS but people tend to think about food, medication and other equipment and don’t consider gloves. I have been able to highlight how not only are we potentially harming our patients through cross contamination and infections, but we are severely misusing and overusing gloves, spending a huge amount of £57 million a year on them alone. 

It is common knowledge that we need to stop exploiting our resources to reduce environmental impact, but by overusing gloves we are producing and throwing away more than necessary. The money spent on producing, buying and disposing gloves and the cost of treating patients for healthcare associated infections which prolongs their stay, means we are investing less time, resources and bed spaces to areas that need it and to patients who need it.

I’m so happy that my dissertation has been able to get the recognition it needs so other nurses and healthcare workers can become aware of how such a simple thing like gloves can make such a big difference to our patients, the environment and the NHS.”

Hannah’s research explored how the role of design could change the textile and apparel industry, if synthetic biology was established as a new technology and production method.

Hannah said: “Winning one of the Environmental awards for my MA practice-based research at Brighton University is a real honour. Textile products are ranked fourth most damaging for environmental impact (EU Retail Forum for Sustainability, 2013). There is an urgent need to find sustainable means to provide for our textile needs. Synthetic biology could offer sustainable solutions, new materials and circular models, to tackle key industry issues. But design research into the wider social, cultural and ethical impacts remain under explored. This research was the start of a journey to understand and communicate its potential and impacts.”