Team:OLS Canmore/Integrated Practices

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INTEGRATED PRACTICES

This year, our team worked very hard in order to incorporate human practices to not only inform people about our project and about iGEM, but also to build our knowledge to allow for further development of our project.

We achieved our goals by communicating with the industries that face the issues regarding keratin waste. From there we spoke to them about the effects this issue had on the industry and asked them for feedback or suggestions that could contribute to the improvement of our project. We used these insights, suggestions, and support, given to us through these connections, to build upon our project. This communication with the industries is the driving force in the continuance and development in our project this year.
In the previous iGEM season, when we first started working on this project, we began to connect with our local wastewater treatment plants. One of our student members, Alina Arvisais, and our supervisor, Mrs. Puurunen visited the Canmore Waste Treatment facility. This trip gave us a lot of insight into how treatment plants function, current removal and disposal methods for the hair, as well as where in their system keratin waste is an issue. They spoke to the workers about how our project could benefit them, asked them for suggestions in regards to implementation.

From that tour we found direction for the first year of this project. One important thing that we found out through the visit, was that the only current way to remove the hair build up from the systems in a water treatment plant is to have a worker go in, and manually rake it out it. This buildup can also cause blockages or break of parts of the system.The employees at the plant told us that our construct would be extremely useful to them, and would save them both time and money. We found that the Canmore facility among others, include the use of bioreactors in their treatment processes, which inspired us to look into how bioreactors work, as well as how we could utilize that system.

This year we focused on maintaining the lines of communication that were opened last year, as well as starting new ones. We chose to do two tours of wastewater treatment plants in order to learn more about the industry and keep up our connection with this industry. We spoke with individuals in three different industries that would be affected by our project; water treatment, the poultry industry, as well as industry which makes useful products from organic waste.

Wastewater Treatment Facilities

Canmore Wastewater Treatment Facility
The first tour way we did that this year, was a tour at the wastewater treatment plant in Canmore. Two team members, Acacia Morales and Freya Morgan toured and spoke to the workers at the plant about our implementation idea. They informed us that it may be hard for us to implement a bioreactor of our design into their existing system, because every plant has a different process. We also talked about how our construct might not be ideal in their specific plant, because the places that they get keratin build up and experience the negative effects see high flow rates of water throughout short periods of time, and if we were to incorporate our bacteria, right there, it would be washed away. We had to think about this and thus changed our ideas surrounding implementation.

Originally we had hoped we could just integrate a bioreactor into their plant, but it became clear it would not be that simple. After this we then decided to visit our other local waste treatment facility for insight, because it became evident that our original plan needed tweaking. From this meeting we began to seriously consider creating an enzyme which could be put directly into the system and separated from clean water with other enzymes used in the system currently.

Banff Water Treatment
Our second visit to a wastewater treatment plant was to the facility in Banff, a town 27km away from us. The three students that attended were Alina Arvisais, Talia Dixon and Freya Morgan. Through the informative tour and discussions, we were able to foster a new relationship with other people in the industry, giving us new perspectives, as well as additional feedback. We learned about their system, which involves an entirely different system from that in Canmore.
They too used bioreactors in their treatment, however they would find implementing an enzyme or bacteria would be preferable to new equipment. They also showed us around their lab, talked about different eukaryotes and bacteria they currently use in their process, and how they monitor their systems with daily testing; an insight that we did not have access to with our contact in Canmore. Having this conversation with the employees there reinforced our idea that implementing our construct would be beneficial, and that we could hope to do so in a bioreactor.

When discussing their bioreactors, we learned that they typically have lower temperatures and different optimal conditions from that which we use for the E. coli strain that we use in our lab. At that point we had to consider how we might tackle that if we were to implement our construct. Some further research indicated that we could use a different bacteria or a purified enzyme in their system for optimal enzyme action. While touring the facility, we also talked about how they currently deal with the hair waste. They send all of their solid waste products, including hair, to Walker Environmental, which is a company that makes useful products from organic waste. This discovery sparked an idea in us: that the complete enzymatic breakdown of the keratin protein could allow for the potential of a high quality useful protein product.

Walker Industries

We contacted Walker Environmental. Which is a is a subsidiary of Walker Industries, which makes fertilizer. Walker Industries specializes in the creating of biosolids, which entails acquiring solid waste from wastewater treatment facilities, and making useful products, like fertilizer, out of it.

After meeting with the general manager, Geoff Boyd, we continued communication with him both through emails and phone calls. We hoped to find out whether or not Walker Industries could use our construct in their process to create a higher quality products or make the process more efficient. Having the hair broken down before the process could help them because, it wouldn’t get caught in their fans in their processes. He also told us that it could help to make the facility and the products more aesthetically pleasing for workers and customers, because a) the facilities would not be covered in hair, and b) the final product would have a more unified look.

Boyd said that this construct could prove very helpful in wastewater and poultry industry. Furthermore the production of the keratinase could be used to enhance certain products. He also talked to us about how we could market our construct as a product, and what kind of revenue we could expect from industry if we were to create a startup company or business from this project.

In the past we briefly talked about the idea of our construct creating a useful protein byproduct that could be used in the creation of other useful products, ie: high quality fertilizers and animal feed, however we had never really looked into it. With that being the case, this year, after being inspired by the conversation we had with Walker Industries, we devoted a lot of our time on researching on how we could realistically obtain this protein product from the degradation of keratin waste. First with implementation, we planned that in our bioreactor we would develop a skimming system to remove the ‘sludge’ which can then be shipped off to manufacturers. We then researched what exactly is procured from the breakdown of keratin and thus what is in the ‘sludge’. From our research of other studies that have broken down keratin by chemical or physical means, that the resulting products are 15-18% nitrogen, 2-5% sulphur, 3.20% mineral elements and 1.27% fat and 90% of proteins (1). This could be used to produce fertilizers and feeds that are high in all of the elements stated, but also in other minerals and proteins.

Chicken Farmers of Canada

The third and final industry we connected with was the poultry industry, through Chicken Farmers of Canada. We asked them a variety of questions to get a more in depth understanding of how our project would affect them and their industry, as we had not yet reached out to them. We asked two pertinent questions and got helpful answers to both. These responses contributed to a deeper understanding of the problems that they face in the industry.
Our questions and their responses were as follows:

Question 1:
What is the role of a chicken farmer in taking care of feather waste? What is the role of chicken processing plants in taking care of feather waste?

Response 1:
The role of the chicken farmer is taking care of feather waste is actually very small to nonexistent. Chicken farmers will ship their chickens to processing plants where the birds will be processed. As a result, it is the responsibility of the processing plant to deal with feather waste.

To my knowledge these are all sent to rendering for protein meal etc. From a chicken farmer perspective, there will be feathers that are left in the in the barn but these will be removed with the litter and composted. I don’t believe feathers become a big issue at the farm level because the quantity is not excessive.

Question 2:
What are the current biosafety guidelines for poultry farms, specifically with genetically modified organisms, or products from genetically modified organisms?

Response 2:
Chicken farmers have to follow a set of requirements relative to food safety and biosecurity. I won’t go into detail on that as from your question you are focused on GMO. Short story is that the chicken industry, save from organic production, does not have any policies or regulations when it comes to the use of GMOs. While there are breeding programs for the birds themselves, there have not been any GMO additions that have been used to date. However on the feed side of things, birds are fed from grain that would be considered GMO.

From this conversation as well as continued conversations throughout the year, we learned that our construct would in fact be helpful to the industry- as we had hoped. We also learned that we would likely have no issues surrounding the use of GMOs, seeing as they are currently being used and there are very few regulations surrounding them.

We also attempted to contact chicken renderers but did not experience much success. Renderers tend to be less open about their waste disposal practices and it is difficult to find information on them online.

Conclusion

Through this year's integrated human practices we learned a lot about how to further develop and improve our project. Our main takeaways were:

1. The development of a bioreactor prototype.
   
   • We finalized our bioreactor prototype keeping in mind the places we planned on using them.
   • We concluded that to implement a bioreactor in a wastewater treatment plants is possible though it may be difficult and costly because every system varies.
   • When it came to the poultry industry, through research and communications made with industry professionals, we came to the understanding that to implement a bioreactor in that industry would be ideal.
   • From there we planned and assembled our bioreactor so we could begin to test out our construct alongside the bioreactor. The reason we feel that bioreactor would work well in this case is because a bioreactor creates a system that would help to keep our construct under ideal conditions. Feathers (keratin waste) could simply be added to the system and then left until there the degraded by-product was ready to be created into another, more useful, product . This could be the best system as it deals with the issue, produces the useful product, is not work intensive, and allows for the easiest application of our construct with the highest output. Please see our demonstrate page for more information on how we took what we learned and used it in our bioreactor design.


2. Beginning to plan out our implementation for wastewater treatment facilities.
   
   • Through our communications we gathered that the best way to implement our construct in a wastewater treatment facility would be implementing a bacterial or enzymatic method. This is the method currently used in treatment plants and would be most easily integrated.


3. The creation of a useful product.
   
   • We considered removal of sludge for our bioreactor design.
   • Continued researching how we would go about cleaning and preparing the sludge after keratin degradation is complete.


4. The development of a business plan.
   
   • We are still developing our construct we had not given much thought to a business plan.
   • Though we have yet to develop a concrete plan we have decided that the only way we can really make our project and our construct worthwhile is if we market and pitch it correctly to stakeholders.

We are very proud of our human practices efforts this year. We hope to continue fostering these relationships with industry professionals, continue learning, developing, and working with the industries in which we are trying to create change.


Citations:

1. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-89132016000100701#B030

Contact us at:
https://www.facebook.com/OLeSsence/
@igem_canmore
larvisais@redeemer.ab.ca