BY: LAURA ROJAS
So it turns out a girl named Elif Bilgin, a 16-year-old junior at Koç High School in Istanbul, Turkey, submitted a project to the 2013 Google Science Fair that won her the “Science in Action Award.”
She developed a way of fabricating bioplastic from discarded, mashed-up, and boiled banana peels dipped in a solution that prevents them from decaying. This innovative form of organic plastic, rather than popular petroleum-based ones, provides an opportunity for rapid advancement in cosmetic prostheses and the electrical insulation of cables.
So why, in 2014, are we still seeing conventional plastic production pretty much everywhere? I don’t have an answer. It just doesn’t make sense.
The importance of bioplastics is indisputable. I really cannot stress it enough. I could go on endless rants about the idiotic things we’re doing, or at least not preventing, when it comes to the detriment of our planet. According to Ecowatch, we’ve produced more plastic waste over the last 10 years than during the entire last century. Gross mass-production of chemical-based plastic products is a rising problem that affects every inch of the planet and every bit of our bodies. Apart from consuming our oil reserves for production; suffocating lakes, rivers, and oceans; and allowing landfills to grow by thousands of pounds a year, plastic is also a hazard to human health. It messes with hormonal receptors for god’s sake. On top of all that, it takes up to a thousand years to break down, leaving behind a weird chemical residue when it finally decomposes.
Read full article here: Banana Peels Could Be The Future Of Plastic
