Микропластик бохирдлыг бууруулах чадалтай био задралд ордог шинэ төрлийн хуванцрыг бүтээжээ

Arya Satheesh had already built a device that could detect contaminants in drinking water. What bothered her was what came next. Finding microplastics, the fragments smaller than 5 millimeters (about 1/5 inch) that now turn up in soil, water and human bodies, did nothing to remove them.

The 18-year-old from Letterkenny, in Ireland’s County Donegal, kept digging. She learned that only about 9 percent of plastic waste worldwide ends up recycled, according to the OECD. “I wanted to find a solution,” she says. “I thought there’s no point in saying, ‘Oh, recycle, recycle.’”

Her answer is Eco Purge, a plant-based, biodegradable plastic that carries enzymes inside it. As the material breaks down, which takes up to about two weeks, it releases those enzymes into the surrounding soil or water, where they go to work on the microplastics already there. In May 2026, the project won the European category of the Earth Prize, the world’s largest environmental competition for students aged 13 to 19, along with $12,500 to keep developing it.

Getting there meant tracking down an enzyme that cost more than most students’ cars are worth by weight. Three milligrams of it were priced at about $2,500.

A School Science Project Turned Into an Enzyme Hunt

Satheesh enters as many science competitions as she can, drawn by the freedom to research whatever catches her interest. Nearly two years ago, for SciFest, Ireland’s largest STEM fair for secondary students, she built a smart water monitor. The monitor had no sensor for microplastics, and the gap sent her into the subject.

The stakes she found were serious. “Microplastics can act like toxic sponges in our ecosystems, absorbing heavy metals and synthetic chemicals,” says Charles Rolsky, executive director of the Shaw Institute in Blue Hill, Maine, who studies microplastics in human tissue. Ingested particles, he says, can inflame tissue, disrupt digestion and leach chemical additives.

Her idea was a plastic that people could throw away as usual, even into a landfill, and that would still clean up after itself. The catch was the enzyme. She used ChatGPT to compile a list of companies in Europe and the United States working with it, then emailed them. A few offered to sell it. “But it was really expensive for me to buy as a student,” she says. “Around three milligrams costs about $2,500.”

After a string of rejections, one researcher said yes. Kevin O’Connor, director of BiOrbic, Ireland’s national bioeconomy research center, tapped his network. Scientists at Aalborg University in Denmark and the University of Greifswald in Germany sent her samples of PETase, an enzyme that breaks down PET plastic, and Atlantic Technological University in Sligo helped store the enzyme and run her experiments.

Six Weeks in Soil, Salt Water and Fresh Water

In January 2026, Satheesh brought her first prototype to the Stripe Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in Dublin, Ireland’s most prestigious science competition for secondary students. It placed second in the biological and ecological category.

To test it, she placed measured amounts of microplastic alongside Eco Purge in soil, salt water and fresh water, then watched each for six weeks. By the end, both the microplastic and Eco Purge had broken down. “The Young Scientist version was primarily a proof of concept,” she says.

For the Earth Prize, she worked with the competition’s mentors to turn the idea into a product that could scale. The plan is to have genetically modified bacteria produce the enzyme, which costs more at first but becomes cheaper over time. She intends to spend half her prize money testing that approach with E. coli, then use the rest to scale up production if it works.

“So Eco Purge wasn’t just suddenly a huge thing,” she says, “but it evolved step by step.”

The Enzyme Works Like a Key, and Only Fits Certain Locks

Bioplastics are no longer new. Companies such as NatureWorks and Novamont already sell plant-based, biodegradable materials, and researchers have made plastics from plant cellulose and algae. None of those products is designed to break down the plastic already scattered around them.

That is what caught Rolsky’s attention. “What makes [Satheesh’s] project stand out is the shift from passive containment to an active solution,” he says.

He also sees limits. Enzymes work on a lock-and-key basis, so one tailored to PET won’t touch the other plastics mixed into soil and water. In the open environment, the enzyme spreads thin. “In open ecosystems, released enzymes will probably dilute into surrounding soil and water, limiting their contact time and ability to break down nearby particles,” he says. He expects the approach to work best in closed settings such as compost facilities.

Manufacturing poses another hurdle. Standard plastic processing uses heat that usually destroys delicate enzymes, and producing enzymes at global scale could be costly next to cheap conventional packaging. Rolsky still calls the design’s ingenuity a strong foundation for future research.

Satheesh would like to see packaging, bioplastic and garbage bag makers using Eco Purge within five years, and she hopes eventually to start her own bioplastics company. She found out she had won the European prize when she checked her email during a free class at school, surrounded by her friends.

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