Introduction:

An underwater view of a section of the Pacific Garbage patch filled with plastic wastes

     Since the advent of material culture after WWII in the 1950’s, disposability of objects has been seen as a luxury to be enjoyed by those who can afford it. As a result plastics have been accumulating as wastes in our environment at intensifying rates. In the United States the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates on average that Americans produce 4.43 pounds of trash per person per day  In 2010 Americans produced 250 million tons of trash, and this does not include industrial, hazardous, and construction based wastes. A specific kind of waste that has entered our environment relatively recently on the planetary time scale is plastic. It estimated that 225 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year, and although they represent only 10% of all wastes produced, they account for a much higher percentage of the wastes that enter our environment as pollution. We have decided to try to find a way to curb the amount of plastic accumulating our environment, and have decided to tackle plastic bottles as our main target. We are trying to re-purpose bottles that have already served their function, and provide positive ecological solutions through their use.

          We decided to work on a functional apparatus for catching flies made from the common water bottle. By catching flies we can help reduce the diseases certain types of them spread such as African Sleeping Sickness, Dysentery, and a variety of other diseases carried by the bacteria flies come in contact with .  We believe our project had clearly observable short term goals and eventually could be implemented on a global level with a longer time scale. Our project was to work out the most effective design of insect catcher, and test out the most efficient common liquids and or solutions that attract flies . We established this website/blog as a resource for others to see and potentially utilize our ideas and research. We also created this blog as a gateway for contact to various organizations that deal in Africa or other countries affected by diseases carried insects, and for those interested in seeking alternatives to chemically based pesticides. We have also constructed a simple hand out that can be distributed in print format to those without modern electronics, but preferably also have it available as a PDF that can be sent through email or other forms of electronic communication without having to waste paper. By educating others about this low cost solution to reducing insect borne disease, and providing an alternative to chemically based pesticides, we would hope that our idea would spread to the communities around the world that would need this device the most, and would also spread on the local level to those who are interested... 

Research, Methods, and Design...

        Experiment 1:

We wanted to test different bait for our traps to see how we could optimize insect catch number and insect specificity. For the fist experiment we tested different solutions to see if they attracted mosquitoes into our traps. We also wanted to make sure that the materials that we where using where cheap and accessible to most people. We tested old milk, coca cola, carbonated water, bananas, urine, and water as a control. Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide, lactic acid, uric acid, and other chemicals secreted through sweat. Old milk has high concentrations of lactic acid, coca cola and carbonated water release carbon dioxide bubbles, urine contains uric acid, and there is an old wives tale about bananas attracting mosquitoes. We also wanted to test whether leaving the cap on the bottles with a hole poked threw it or no cap made a difference in the number of insects captured and specificity of insects captured. We needed to test in a location with high mosquito populations so we hiked to a remote spot at Rattlesnake Creek, in Goleta California, that was blanketed in mosquitoes. At the testing location we set up two of each trap, one with a modified cap, one with no cap. We left the traps in that location for four days and then hiked back to retrieve our data. The contents of the traps where poured into coffee filters and the data was collected. Unfortunately though we only captured two mosquitoes, both in the coca cola sample.

Experiment 2:

We then tested different solutions as fly attractants. For the first fly test we used eggs, coke, bananas, coke, old milk, hotdog meat, and water as a control. We used two of each trap again to test whether having a modified cap or no cap made a difference in catch number and capture specificity. We tested these traps at horse pasture in Goleta and left them there for 4 days. This time our traps functioned successfully. The contents of the traps where poured into coffee filters and counted. For the traps with eggs; modified cap: 5 flies, no cap: 3 flies. Traps with coke; modified cap: 0, no cap: 1 fly. Traps with banana; modified cap: 3 flies, no cap: 4 flies. The traps with old milk; modified cap: 2 mosquitoes, no cap: 5 flies, 1 pincherbug. The traps with meat; modified cap: 9 flies, no cap: 6 flies, ants, and 1 live lizard. And finally our control H20; modified cap: 1 fly, no cap: 1 silverfish. The results of this first experiment showed us that we captured the most flies using meat and eggs. We also demonstrated that there is more bycatch in traps that do not have the modified cap. The meat trap with no cap captured a lizard, ants and various other insects. The lizard got away safely, but to prevent this from occurring again we have decided to include the modified cap in the trap design in order to increase trap specificity.

       Experiment 3:

For the next fly experiment we used successful materials from the first experiment and some other new materials. We also tested whether adding a drop of soap to the water would decrease the surface tension of the water and increase our catch yield. We tested 2 of each, one with a drop of soap added and one without.  The solutions we tested where fish, beer, old milk, bananas, horse poop, hotdog meat, eggs, and water as a control. We set the traps in the same location as before and left them out there for 4 days. The contents of the traps where poured into coffee filters to collect the data. Traps with fish; no soap: 1 cockroach, soap: 0. Traps with beer; no soap; 2 cockroaches, 1 pincherbug, soap: 0. Traps with old milk; no soap: 2 flies, soap: 2 flies. Traps with banana; no soap: 1 fly, soap: 6 pincherbugs. Traps with horse poop; no soap: 0, soap: 0, Traps with meat: no soap: 6 flies, soap: 8 flies, 2 yellowjackets. Traps with eggs; no soap: 8 flies, 5 yellowjackets, soap: 4 flies. Traps with control H20; no soap: 0, soap: 0. These results showed us that traps containing meat or eggs attracted the greatest number of flies. We also observed that soap made no noticeable difference in the number of insects we captured.  

How To Make a Water Bottle Fly Trap: (Instructional Guide)

Here is an easy to understand 8 step guide for creating your own fly catcher. This site does not host file sharing, so if you'd like a PDF copy for downloading, then contact the authors of this blog and we will send you one by email. Or you can download the JPEG. version of this instructional guide that we provide below:

* Strong fly attractants can be made by filling the bottom of the trap with ~ 1cm. of water and then adding a small amount of meat or egg.

Aims and Goals: (Plastics in the Environment)

Since the beginning of "Disposable Culture" in the 1950's plastic wastes have been accumulating in our environment at rapid levels. Some of the main factors contributing to our large amount of synthetic plastic wastes are: increasing population growth rates, socio-economic development (GDP), and changes in household consumption patterns for disposable goods, and increased manufacturing of goods. Increased manufacturing production plastic makes up the majority of the plastics that find their way into our environment, and less than 8% of the plastics used in production are actually recycled; This means almost 92% of it finds its way into our landfills and oceans, and can affect these kinds of aquatic environments immensely. These plastics are polluting our environment on dramatic scales and in ways that are incredibly detrimental to the balance of our ecosystem because of their long natural decomposition times. It is estimated that 225 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year, and although they represent only 10% of all wastes produced, they account for a much higher percentage of the wastes that enter our environment as pollution. Plastics comprise 50-80% of the waste stranded on beaches, floating on the ocean surface, and on the seabed. We have decided to address this problem of excess plastics in the environment by reappropriaiting one of the biggest kinds of plastic pollution: bottles. By using plastic bottles as insect catchers we hope to reduce the amount of plastic that enters their environment and give already existent plastic bottles new function. 

Aims and Goals: (Insect Transmitted Diseases)

     These recycled water bottle traps may have global implications in terms of mitigating the impact of insect transmitted disease. Invertebrates are very common vectors of disease. About half of the world’s population is at risk to malaria, which claims about 700,000 lives every year. The African tsetse fly serves as a vector for the transmission of African trypanosomiasis, which claims around 50,000 lives annually. Flys also carry Typhoid, Myiasis, Dysentery, Leprosy, Leishmaniasis, Onchocerciasis, and Bartonellosis. Flies harbor bacteria and parasites that can be spread when they touch surfaces with their legs or their saliva. Impoverished regions suffer the most heavily from these diseases and so our projects aim was to develop insect traps from things accessible to anyone. Our world has an abundance of plastic bottles but limited resources for pest control. Rather then relying on environmentally damaging pesticides or commercial insect traps, people can just find plastic water bottles and turn them into something that could potentially decrease their risk of catching an insect transmitted disease. These traps could save peoples lives and money. Below is some information on some of the diseases that flies carry.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0117442/html/diseases.html

    -This resource provides information on the variety of diseases flies carry such as dysentery, leprosy, and African sleeping sickness. Gives detailed descriptions and graphic images to further explain these diseases.

Aims and Goals: (Alternative Pesticides)

      The over-usage of pesticides has lead to many environmental and municipal problems in modern times. These chemicals are leaking into streams, rivers, lakes, the ocean, and our freshwater tables. The presence of these chemicals in the environment has lead to a sharp decline in amphibian populations. They also affect the health of non-targeted insect species like honeybees. These chemicals are bio accumulating in the higher trophic levels of ecosystems, affecting the entire ecological system as a whole. These higher trophic species affected include, predatory birds, predatory mammals, predatory fish and humans. The overuse of pesticides by humans is pragmatically shortsighted for a species that ranks at the top of the food chain. Local organic farming has become popular in recent years as an alternative to pesticide usage and industrial agriculture in general. Our insect traps could be applied to organic agriculture as a safe and cost affordable alternative to pesticides. Water bottles are an abundant resource available to anyone, so rather then adding pesticides to an environment already filled with plastic waste we propose to re-appropriate the function of plastic waste for pest control.

Gallery

Here are some pictures of us in the field, assembling traps, collecting data, and the environments which we were working in....