Teenager wins Google Science award for genius invention that could cheaply remove most microplastics from the ocean


Because microplastics are so small — some as tiny as grains of sand — scientists have had a hard time figuring out to remove them from the soil and the sea.

Now, an Irish teenager has come up with a promising solution for this seemingly impossible task — a magnetic liquid that attracts microplastics to itself.

18-year-old Fionn Ferreira was kayaking one day when he spotted a rock covered in oil from a recent spill. Clinging to the oil were a bunch of tiny pieces of plastic.

“It got me thinking,” Ferreira told Business Insider. “In chemistry, like attracts like.”

Plastic and oil are nonpolar, making them likely to stick together in nature

Ferreira wondered if the effect could be recreated using ferrofluid, a magnetic, oil-based liquid invented by NASA in 1963 to keep rocket fuel moving in zero gravity.

Today ferrofluid is used to control vibrations in speakers and to seal off electronics to keep debris out.

Ferreira makes a more environmentally friendly version of the liquid than the kind used in rocket fuel, using recycled vegetable oil and magnetite powder, a mineral found naturally on Earth’s surface.

When he first drops the liquid into a container of water contaminated with microplastics, it disperses and turns the water black.

Then he dips a magnet in the water, which pulls out all the ferrofluid, plastic and all, leaving clear water behind.

The method removed 88% of the micrplastics in his test samples.

The most difficult type of microplastic to remove was polypropylene, used to make all sorts of plastic packaging. Still, the ferrofluid removes 80% of polypropylene.

The easiest microplastics to remove were microfibers from plastic clothing such polyester, spandex and Lycra.

Washers and dryers are currently not equipped to filter these microfibers, which are a major source of ocean plastic pollution, so this is great news for that application.

Additionally, Ferreira‘s invention can be used at wastewater treatment plants as a sort of catch-all for microplastic pollution before it enters rivers, lakes and oceans.




Ferreira has won the Google Science award, $50,000 and educational funding for his invention.

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A Mexican researcher has discovered a way to make plastic from cactus that biodegrades in a month and is safe to ingest.

Credit: Jorge Valencia/KJZZ
Sandra Pascoe Ortiz, a chemical engineering professor at the University of the Valley of Atemajac, has come up with a new use for the prickly pear cactus - a staple in the country's diet - using its juice as a base for biodegradable plastic.

Her most recent samples are light green, paper thin and tough enough to be used as bags.

Pascoe Ortiz hopes the cactus-based plastic will help reduce the impact of solid waste in Mexico and around the world.

Watch the video below to learn more:


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While the world focuses on the menace of plastic straws, there has been another contender that is creeping up everywhere on our planet. Yes, plastic straws are awful and the corporations and other organizations banning it are absolutely right. But did you know that cigarette butts are actually the most polluting man-made pollutant in our oceans? As per reports, it turns out to be true.



Yes, our vast focus and energy are somewhat focused just into one thing. Cigarettes should be the next thing to see more widespread bans and there needs to be more awareness about their awful effect on nature.



On 22nd April in Brussels, volunteers collected about 120,000 cigarette butts. Almost all smokers just dispose of them anywhere and everywhere. Under a tree, into the drains, or just about anywhere onto the road. This minute gesture definitely seems to bear no consequence. But studies show that the cigarette butt-flicking habit is causing alarm among both human and animal population.


Contrary to popular belief, cigarette butts contain plastic – cellulose acetate. They also contain about 4000 other chemicals, none of which are biodegradable. These minute pieces of waste can contaminate vast amounts of water, even 500 liters of it! They make up the very first waste product that is found in our environments. To every smoker out there, try to do your bit and carry a mini-ashtray or just dispose the butt into the trash can. Our planet is not your universal ashtray.


In recent times, major corporations, environmental groups, and even parts of countries have joined the anti-plastic-straw movements.

Major global corporations from Starbucks to McDonald’s and hotel chains like Hyatt to Marriott have introduced bans for plastic straws.

Cigarettes have taken over the planet like wildfire and are present in practically every space imaginable. But Government regulation or any kind of regulation to their disposal has not seen any discussion on it. This, in turn, means that untraceable amounts of cigarette butts make their way into our oceans. Fortunately enough, there are quite a few organizations and people who are striving to bring light to this matter.

One initiative, in particular, the Cigarette Butt Pollution Project, is looking to get cigarette butts banned. They are manufactured using cellulose acetate, which is a plastic type that takes 10 years to biodegrade.


There are over 5.6 trillion cigarettes manufactured in a year with these toxic filters. But the majority of them are dumped absolutely irresponsibly.

Another initiative called the Ocean Conservancy sponsors the cleanup of one shoreline each year ever since 1986.

During each cleanup during the past 32 years, cigarette butts are the item which is collected the most. Over 60 million of them have been collected from the beaches on the planet.
All of those butts can account for 1/3rd of all the collected waste such as wrappers, bottle caps, containers, bottles, and eating utensils, all combined.
More often than not, people just carelessly dump their trash on the beach and it ends up in our oceans. This waste then ends up in the wildlife as Microplastics.

The discarded cigarette filters contain several hundred or even thousands of artificial chemical compounds. Not to forget, they are also made using synthetic fibers.


So if you are one that cares about the planet, then urge people to dump their trash responsibly. If you are a smoker, then please do your bit and just use trash cans to dump your waste. We have only one planet to live in and we share it with infinite other life forms. Let’s take care of it.

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Environmentally Friendly Since Walt

All of this builds on the company’s longtime dedication to environmental stewardship. The tradition of a strong commitment to sustainability began with Walt Disney himself and it has only continued to grow with tremendous support and passion from Disney cast members. Bob Iger, chief executive of Disney, has repeatedly said that he wants Disney to be the most admired company in the world.

Mark Penning, vice president of Disney’s animals, science and environment team, added in, “Not just for creating incredible content but for being a responsible citizen of the world… Our guests tell us the environment is important, so it’s a big deal for us.”

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According to experts, the second largest emperor penguin colony in Antarctica has disappeared, due to a catastrophic event.

Back in 2016, thousands of penguin chicks from the Halley Bay colony disappeared following extreme weather conditions. During a storm, the sea ice where they where raised was destroyed. Therefore, the whole chicks drowned in the Weddell Sea.

Credit: Peter Fretwell/British Antarctic Survey via AP
Ever since the colony has struggled to repopulate as the they failed to produce any more chicks, BBC reports. A team from the British Antarctic Survey has noticed the extinction of the huge colony using satellite pictures.

For the second year in a row NO emperor penguin chicks have survived in the artic, scientists believe this is due to declining ice. This planet is dying.

— abbie (@AbbieDavy) April 25, 2019

“The sea ice that’s formed since 2016 hasn’t been as strong. Storm events that occur in October and November will now blow it out early. So there’s been some sort of regime change. Sea ice that was previously stable and reliable is now just untenable,” Dr Peter Fretwell from the British Antarctic Survey told BBC News.

While between 14,000 and 25,000 breeding emperor penguin pairs, were heading Halley Bay yearly, since the catastrophic event only a few were spotted.

Credit:Xinhua/Liu Shiping


“What’s interesting for me is not that colonies move or that we can have major breeding failures – we know that. It’s that we are talking here about the deep embayment of the Weddell Sea, which is potentially one of the climate change refugia for those cold-adapted species like emperor penguins.

And so if we see major disturbances in these refugia – where we haven’t previously seen changes in 60 years – that’s an important signal, ” Dr. Phil Trathan told BBC News.

That means even most of the pairs avoided to breed in the last two years, or they headed to new breeding sites. However the question remains. Can the penguins survive the climate change?


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The Nepalese Army has removed two tons of waste from Mount Everest under its Mount Everest cleanup campaign.

Credit: Nepal Army
According to the Nepalese Army, the cleanup campaign was launched on April 14, 2019 as part of the 24th annual "Wildlife Week", a program organized by the Sagarmatha National Park Office.

After the cleanup campaign was concluded, the army transported half of the non-biodegradable waste by helicopter to the Blue Waste To Value Company. The remaining ton of waste was taken to the army barraks in Okhaldhunga for treatment, according to a press release issued by the army.

The Nepalese army has also pledged to provide the manpower and machines necessary for the Clean Mountains Campaign which will run until May 19, 2019.

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As some rumours swirl around the internet that there will be more plastic than fish by 2050, there are also some great stories about local recycling, like this one about Goby The Fish.

This local beach decided to do something simple, instead of just placing a ton of boring old garbage cans around the beach, they made a giant see through fish out of some barbed wire and mesh, and added a sign to it that said “Goby loves plastic, please feed him”.

The key to the success was that kids had no pleasure in recycling plastics into those old crusty blue bins, but when it turned into a game where they had to “feed” Goby it just took off.


Goby to this day is constantly being fed, and most of the times he actually gets more than he he needs for a days meal. He’s usually taken away by the city overnight to empty all his plastic that he’s eaten, and then brought back the next morning with an empty stomach so people can continue to feed him again and again.

My question is, why is there not a Goby on every single beach in this world!?

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“HempWood” is 20 percent harder than oak, and grows 100 times as fast. It’s a sustainable alternative for hardwood furniture, flooring and more.


Now that it’s legal to grow hemp in the United States, a man who’s spent the last decade developing hemp “hardwood” is building a $6 million factory to manufacture the product en masse. His patented product called “HempWood” is made out of compressed hemp pulp fibers, held together with a soy-based glue.

While that may sound like some newfangled version of particle board, it’s not. It looks and feels like oak, but is actually 20 percent harder than the famous hardwood tree.

It also grows 100 times as fast. While it takes an oak tree at least 6 decades to mature, it takes hemp 6 months.


Thats good news for oak trees, as they are among the most endangered trees in the planet because of the high demand for solid oak furniture. The owner of the new start up company Fibonacci, Greg Wilson, was a pioneer in the bamboo flooring industry before hemp became legal.

The company uses technology popularized by China’s strand-woven bamboo industry, in addition to technology developed at Wilson’s other company SmartOak, which creates engineered wood products using logs that would otherwise be converted to wood chips. HempWood will be used to make blocks, boards, flooring, cutting boards and skateboards, all at prices far cheaper than oak, the company said.

The company will be headquartered in Kentucky, where more than 40,000 acres of hemp are already being cultivated.

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We’ve all heard the warning that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.

People are working on strategies to remove millions of tons of plastic waste from the ocean, but it will end up right back in it if we don’t figure out what to do with it.

Plastic bottles can’t actually be recycled into new plastic bottles, and once plastic is created, it pretty much never goes away.

Adidas plans to get the ball rolling by making 1 million pairs of running shoes out of 11 million plastic bottles recovered from the ocean, near the Maldives.


Adidas strives to eventually eliminate virgin plastic from its supply chain altogether.




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BioCarbon Engineering is a company located in UK. The company has been developing a high-tech system that uses drones to replant deforested areas — even in areas where planting wouldn’t be feasible using older methods.

Their system utilizes drones for two separate stages of the process. First, they’re sent into the target area to create a detailed, three-dimensional map. Once they’ve completed that step, the planting drones return to the site to do their thing.

They move with GPS-guided precision and they’re incredibly efficient. BioCarbon says that its drones can plant a tree in less than a second, or upwards of 100,000 trees in a single day. How? By firing a sort of agri-bullet into the ground.


Each drone can carry a load of biodegradable seed pods. Because diversity is key to a sustainable, healthy forest, BioCarbon’s drones can plant multiple species at the same time. They can also plant them in a highly-optimized arrangement, thanks to the advanced scouting work by the mapping drones.



Ultimately, BioCarbon Engineering wants to have 150 fleets of 6 drones each up and running. With a fleet that size, they say they’d be capable of planting tens of billions of trees per year… and they’ll do it at a fraction of the cost of traditional planting.

CEO Dr. Lauren Fletcher has set a lofty goal for his company. He wants to plant half a trillion trees in the next three decades. You’ve got to like his odds when BioCarbon Engineering drones can do the job ten times faster than people, for 85% less money, and in places where it wouldn’t even have been practical to send people in the first place.

Right now, they’re working to restore 10,000 hectares of mangrove forest in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar.

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This Thai supermarket chain is now wrapping its fruits and veggies in an abundant biodegradable, renewable resource — banana leaves.


A supermarket chain in Chiangmai, Thailand, is doing its part to stem the tide of single-use plastics flooding into the ocean.

While most supermarkets bundle their strawberries in plastic boxes, their corn in plastic shrink wrap and their mushrooms in plastic produce bags, this grocer has come up with an innovative, eco-friendly solution.


Banana leaves are a plentiful and nearly free resource, except for the cost of gathering them.


They’ve been used for millennia as plates and food wrappers and are still used as stylish serving dishes today in Indian and Filipino restaurants.


Banana leaves are said to lend a special flavor to a dish and can even be used to steam foods like Vietnamese sausage.

Not only do the leaves make for a lovely presentation, but it is believed that an enzyme on the leaf, which is released into the food, aids in digestion.


So instead of contaminating our produce with hormone-disrupting BPA, we could actually be making it more nutritious.

Now the benefits of the banana leaf are being expanded beyond fine dining and into the grocery store. They’re large, flexible and waterproof, making for sturdy packaging.




Researchers in Sri Lanka have also perfected a technique for curing banana leaves so they can be kept for more than a month under refrigerated conditions without any change in color or quality.

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