PCBbuster Poll

Our goals :

- To determine whether the French are aware of the level of water pollution today and of its consequences.

- To determine if the French know about PCBs and about the different types of pollution in the Seine

- To understand and know the french opinion about GMO

- To determine if french people know about synthetic biology

Our PCBbuster poll :

1. Do you feel concerned about water pollution ? And about the Seine pollution ?

2. Can you give a mark from 1 and 10 to qualify the degree of pollution of the Seine river?

3. According to you, what are the main pollutants in the Seine river?

4. Have you ever heard about PCBs?

5. We are a student team from the Paris-Saclay University, we are participating this year to a international competition, and we work on designing an efficient and cheap method to degrade PCB. What do you think about it ?

6. What if I tell you that this method uses GMO ?

7. What is your opinion on GMOs ? Why ? Are you afraid of them?

8. Have you heard of synthetic biology and of its objectives ?

During one afternoon we interviewed people in the streets of Paris.

Our results

We have interviewed more 102 persons.

Question 1 : Do you feel concerned about water pollution ? And about the Seine pollution ?

In general, the people we interviewed felt concerned about pollution of the Seine river, and more generally, about water pollution. This is understandable because they live in Paris and the Seine river is in their immediate environment.

Question 2 : Can you give a mark from 1 and 10 to qualify the degree of pollution of the Seine river?

People are in general aware that the Seine is polluted, and the most popular mark is : 7/10.

Question 3 : According to you, what are the main pollutants in the Seine river?

pc: chemical products pl:plastics e:wastewater g:big waste

When people think about the pollution of the Seine river, they estimate that the main pollutant is plastic. It seems logical because it is the pollutant the most visible in the Seine.

Question 4: Have you ever heard about PCBs?

Most of the persons we interviewed did not know what PCBs are, or if they represent a real problem in France.

Question 5: We are a student team from the Paris-Saclay University, we are participating this year to a international competition, and we work on designing an efficient and cheap method to degrade PCB. What do you think about it ?

Question 6: What if I tell you that this method uses GMO ?

Unkind what normally french people think about GMOs in this interview most of them were agree to use it on the way to bioremediation.

Question 8: Have you heard of synthetic biology and of its objectives ?

Most of people don't know what synthetic biology even if this science becomes to be quite popular.

Our conclusion

More than 62% of people we interviewed did not know about PCBs. However, people felt concerned about the water pollution and considered that the Seine is quite polluted (79% gave a degree of pollution superior or equal to 6/10). The important result is the fact that people were supportive of our project, even after they learned it uses GMO. However they are, in general, worry about the consequences of the proliferation of this type of modified bacteria. One of their major fear is the fact that even scientists do not know about consequences of proliferation : can modified DNA be integrated in another organism, can we stop the proliferation of GMO in nature, these are examples of recurrent questions. This poll was an interesting experience, we learnt a lot about the public opinion and it gave us another vision of our project and its impact.

Written by Caroline and Eric