Plastic pollution assessment
methodologies suitability toolkit
V1.0




Quick Start Guide
Quick Start Guide
The ‘Plastic Pollution Assessment Methodology Suitability Toolkit’ (PLAST) can only work with
Microsoft Windows. Other operating systems such as Mac OS cannot run this application.
Read this quick start guide to help set up the required system settings to get started with the
PLAST Toolkit.




Microsoft Windows

Step 1. Open Microsoft Excel and configure the “Trust Setting” before downloading
        and opening the PLAST toolkit
Follow these steps;
1a. Open Excel and click on File in the menu
1b. Then click Options and click Trust Centre
1c. You will see a screen similar to the following:




1d. Click on Trust Center Settings..
1e. Choose the Macro Setting “Disable VBA macros except digitally signed macros”. Note:
on some versions of Microsoft Excel this may instead read, “Disable all macros except
digitally signed macros”.
1f. Tick the box “Trust access to the VBA project object model”.
1g. Click OK button to save settings and exit back to the Excel program




1h. Close Microsoft Excel


Note: Some users that have computers provided and configured by their
companies/organisations may have Security Policies pre-set and find that access to the
Microsoft Excel Trust Centre is disabled or that the Macro Settings cannot be changed.


 If your organization has disabled the Macro
 Settings, then you can instead attempt to
 run the macros by right-clicking the PLAST
 file once it has been downloaded and saved
 to My Document (see Step 2), choosing
 Properties, and then select the Unblock
 checkbox on the General tab.

 Warning – Selecting ‘Unblock’ bypasses
 the digital certification and should only
 be done if users are confident of the
 source of the file.




Step 2. Download the excel version of the PLAST toolkit and move to ‘My Documents’
Errors may be encountered if you try and run PLAST from a network drive such as OneDrive.
To ensure PLAST works correctly, we recommend saving the downloaded file to ‘My
Documents’ on your C Drive to run. PLAST can still be saved after its operation to OneDrive
folders for sharing, however, it should always be moved to a stable location prior to opening
(e.g., ‘My Documents’). Note: You must have permission to save files in the folder in which
the PLAST has been saved and opened from.
Step 3. Open PLAST toolkit and install the security certificate

       Note: The toolkit is best opened for the first time on a single screen set-up. It is
       suggested to unplug any additional screens before opening.


Follow these steps;
3a. You will see a screen similar to the below picture:

3b. Click on Enable Content




3c. Then click on YES to make the file a Trusted Document
3d. And click Options




3e. And click Show Signature Details
3f. Click on View Certificate




3g. Now click on Install Certificate…
3h. Choose store location “Local Machine” and click Next button




3i. Now we choose where to save the certificate. To do this, you click on the Browse…
3j. Choose “Trusted Root Certification Authorities” and click on the OK button.




3k. Then click Finish button to complete the certificate installation.




3l. You will get a confirmation. Click OK
3m. Select the option “Trust all documents from this publisher” and click OK .




3n. Close Excel and reopen the PLAST spreadsheet application and the system should be
fully functional.