Plastic bags are known to be our environment’s worst enemy. They are known as the ‘silent killers’ that slowly poison our world today.
Studies show that 300 Million plastic bags end up in the Atlantic Ocean alone, endangering sea life! What makes things worse, plastic bags usually require hundreds of years before they break down. Because of this, many environmental advocates encourage people to use eco-friendly bags to at least minimize the pollution caused by plastic bags.
Meanwhile, a young 15-year old Filipino inventor successfully came up with a way to end this struggle forever. He invented biodegradable plastic bags.
Source: Barakonews
Amin Hataman, a student at the Fountain International School, in Metro Manila. He was thinking of a science project, when he suddenly took notice of the environment where he grew up in—Mindanao.
“Growing up there, I developed this love for the environment,” Hataman said.
According to Hataman, as a child, he noticed people’s common practice of placing garbage inside that is not biodegradable.
“I did some research on how plastic was actually doing a lot of damage to the environment,” Hataman said.
So, he chose his science project to be related to biodegradable alternatives to plastic and learned about the cellulose properties of Nata de Coco.
“There was this suggestion of nata de coco, because it has cellulose properties, which means that it could copy plastic that we use today, but it’s organic. Right now, I’m actually already trying to patent this. In the future, if I go into business, I might be able to implement this,” Hataman said.
Source: Juice
His Science teacher saw the potential of his research and submitted it to various international contests. Now, Amin Hataman is a certified international award-winning inventor of biodegradable plastic bags.
He has various awards: A bronze medal in the 2015 International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering and Environment Project (I-SWEEP) Olympiad held in Houston, Texas. A Gold medal in the 2014 International Young Inventors Olympiad in Tbilisi, Georgia. He is also listed in Forbes 30 under 30 Asia.
