Who checks out a banana peel and also believes, “I could transform that into plastic”? Elif Bilgin, for one. At age 16, the high school student from Istanbul, Turkey, even won a 2013 Google Science Fair honor for her plan to turn banana peels off right into a bioplastic.
Words “bioplastic” can be used to define a plastic that is biodegradable, implying it damages down over time. Yet words additionally refers to a plastic made with renewable resources such as vegetable oils, starches, and also various other biology-based components. Some, however not all, plastics made from renewable energies are also biodegradable.
In her project description, Elif describes that she intended to collaborate with bioplastics since they might assist to minimize air, land, as well as water air pollution caused by typical plastics, which are made with petroleum.
It took her 10 tries throughout two years, yet she lastly came up with a means to make a banana-peel plastic that is strong as well as steady adequate to be made use of in such items as man-made limbs and cord insulation. She reports that her approach was simple sufficient that individuals “might in fact do it at home,” suggesting that, at the very least in theory, “anyone might use this plastic.”
Elif claims she loves doing clinical research, and also one of her inspirations is Marie Curie, the Nobel Champion physicist who studied radioactivity. She wants to do more projects that can be helpful for the environment. Her biggest dream? To someday construct a “greenhouse made from waste materials.”
She also wishes to study medicine eventually, a goal she says the money from her science fair award can help her reach. More vital, she claims, is that winning verifies she’s on the appropriate path, as well as “scientific research is my calling.”
