During the summer of 2025 I was awarded a Mitacs Accelerate Internship. This internship partners with a university and community or industry partner to provide students with research in the work field. For my internship I partnered with Thompson Rivers University and the City of Kamloops and we developed a research project that would target improvements to the new composting facility in Kamloops. Composting in a more environmentally friendly way of dealing with municipal food waste however, due to human miss-use or improper understanding of what can go in compost, there is lots of plastic that is contaminating the compost piles. Over the summer it was my goal to identify plastic contamination in compost in the form of microplastics. This was done through various microscopy and spectroscopy techniques like fluorescent microscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. In addition, through this internship we also begun planning a new strategy to break down any microplastics in the compost using native bacteria that have specialized metabolisms that degrade plastics.
MITACS Interim Report with the City of Kamloops
Reflection:
From this project I learned lots about applying environmental theories into practice. I was fortunate enough to work with the City of Kamloops and Grassland Organics which gave me experience working with community and industry management. I learned that when you work closely with the City or companies they can be quite receptive to your ideas and will try to make an effort towards more sustainable practices. Having guidance from the university seemed to provide the city with a plan that they could follow, knowing that we have the best interests of the environment as our primary goal.