Polystyrene is a material that is made from small spheres of the polystyrene polymer that are mixed, using heat, with chemicals that expand them until they increase to 50 times their original volume.
This material causes serious damage to the environment since, when it is thrown into the oceans, it does not degrade. In addition, many animals can ingest it and lose their lives, as happens with plastic. It has even been found in the stomach of many of them when they mysteriously die.
Some cities around the world are banning it, but this material is still used very frequently for food packaging.
Sayuri Magnabosco, a 17-year-old Brazilian girl, upon learning that this material takes between 100 and 300 years to decompose in nature, wanted to find a solution. Her idea was to create trays from bagasse, a material that is left over after extracting the juice from sugar cane.
With the help of her mother and teachers, Sayuri managed to make her idea come true. In just one year, she managed to develop an optimal method to reuse this waste and obtain biodegradable trays. Several international awards recognized his work.
Sayuri began by reusing the cane residue that a juice vendor in her town discarded. Blending the residue in a common processor, he managed to obtain a powder that he then mixed with a wheat-based flour paste and water. Then he dried it in the oven. Thus, he got the first trays from him.
Sayuri is now working on building a solar oven to make the process even more environmentally friendly, and she continues to think about how to make the impact of her project bigger.
The created tray degrades in a few weeks and is totally free of toxins: it could even be eaten, and nothing bad would happen to the animals that could ingest them.
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