It’s fairly common to dispose of the banana peel, but now these former waste is the raw material for a solution to plastic contamination.
Three students from Mexico’s Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP) used banana peels to create a material similar to plastic to reduce world pollution.
Aranza Meza, Israel Hernández, and Edmundo Balderas were inspired by a project developed by a young Turkish woman, and conducted several experiments until they came up with a kind of plastic that degrades faster than normal.
The material is made with banana peels, corn starch, vinegar and glycerin, which, after 24 hours of being mixed, result in bio plastic.
With only 2 banana peels, the students produced one 50cm x 50cm plastic plate at a very low cost.
The students have drawn attention with this innovative project and will now go to a scientific forum in London to present their idea.