Team:Hong Kong JSS/Description


Hong Kong JSS

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Description

Project Inspiration

Our project is inspired by the Lead Water Incident in Hong Kong in 2015. Samples of potable water in Hong Kong were first found at Kai Ching Estate in Kowloon which contains excessive levels of heavy metals including lead, nickel and cadmium that exceed the standard established by the World Health Organization(WHO) in 2015. According to the Water Supplies Department, the public monopoly supplier of potable water, lead contamination was caused by the illegal soldering at the joints of water pipes. The lead will cause some health problems, especially for children. Since a child’s brain is still developing, lead can also lead to intellectual disability, causing growth problems, low IQ and hyperactivity. Such discoveries caused a widespread crisis within the city, raising public awareness on heavy metals pollution problems.

Newspaper cutting of the Hong Kong lead water incident.


Heavy metals pollution is also a global issue. Although there are no widely agreed criterion-based definition, heavy metals are generally defined as metals with relatively high densities, atomic weights, or atomic numbers. Heavy metals are often assumed to be highly toxic or damaging to the environment. Some are, while certain others are toxic only if taken in excess or encountered in certain forms. Apart from lead pollution, here are some examples of serious heavy metal pollution problems.
  1. Itai-itai disease
    Itai-itai disease is a cadmium poisoning disease which had brought a hot discussion over Japan in the 1910s. Cadmium poisoning can also cause the softening of bones and kidney failure.
  2. Arsenic poisoning
    In 2007, a study found that over 137 millions of people in 70 countries are probably affected by arsenic poisoning of drinking water. Among those countries, Bangladesh is the most serious one. Long-term exposure can result in thickening of the skin, darker skin, abdominal pain, diarrhea, heart disease, numbness, and cancer.

Heavy metal pollution is a world-wide issue.



Targeting Copper Pollution Problem

Why we are focusing on copper?
Making use of commercially available copper test kits, we had developed a method to accurately quantify copper concentration in water samples by measuring the absorbance using the colorimeter. It is easy to be handled and tested in our high school laboratory. As a result, we aimed to use copper as an example to demonstrate how we can use synthetic biology to solve heavy metals pollution problems.

We modify the API copper testing kit, so that we can accurately measure copper level in our school laboratory.



Effect of Copper Intoxication

Effect of Copper Intoxication
Although copper is a nutrient for humans, excessive intake can lead to vomiting, damage to nervous system, muscles weakening, which are some of the symptoms of copper poisoning. Diseases associated with copper intoxication include the Alzheimer's disease and Wilson’s disease.

More than 10mg/day copper intake can lead to serious health problems.

Reference:

  1. 2015 Hong Kong heavy metal in drinking water incidents. (2019, September 10). Retrieved from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Hong_Kong_heavy_metal_in_drinking_water_incidents
  2. Heavy metals. (2019, September 17). Retrieved from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metals.
  3. Alzheimer's disease. (2019, October 16). Retrieved from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer's_disease.
  4. Wilson's disease. (2019, October 17). Retrieved from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson's_disease.
  5. Itai-itai disease. (2019, September 22). Retrieved from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itai-itai_disease.
  6. Arsenic contamination of groundwater. (2019, October 3). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_contamination_of_groundwater#Dietary_intake.



Copper Pollution in Hong Kong

We conducted water tests in order to evaluate how copper pollution affect our daily life in Hong Kong. We collected water samples from different areas, including from freshwater habitats, from the sea, from drinking water and from aquaponics and aquarium.

We collected different types of water samples from different area in Hong Kong.


We conducted copper tests for all water samples. Drinking water and freshwater samples are safe, all of them contain less than 1mg/L copper and some are free of copper. For seawater samples, copper can be detected in all samples, most of them contain 1-2 mg/L copper. This could be due to the contaminated sediment as industrial sewage can be directly discharged into Tolo and Victoria harbor back in the 1960s - 1980s. Lastly, the water sample from aquaponics and aquarium contains the highest level of copper, some of them have up to 3mg/L copper, which is one-third of the daily dietary allowance for an adult.

Results of our water sample tests. Aquaponic water is polluted by copper.


In human practice, we had conducted interviews with the aquaponic business owners. They stated that copper pollution is a problem within the business. Sources of copper pollution include electronic waste around the fish pond, old water pipes and contaminated fish food.

Results of our water sample tests. Aquaponic water is polluted by copper.


The copper level in the aquaponic system needs to be checked regularly to ensure the safety of the fishes and crops produced. Cleaning up heavy metals pollution from their system increases the operational cost. Therefore, the target of our project is to use genetically modified E coli as a copper ion absorbent to solve copper pollution problem in aquaponic. We hope our project can shed light on the use of microorganisms to solve heavy metal pollution issues around the world.