A few University students in Costa Rica wanted to do something about the amount of plastics used in the country and the impact they have on the environment. The banana industry alone in the country uses a substantial amount, says Daniela Palomo, one of the researchers.

“Bananas represent the thirty-five point four percent (35.4%) of the country’s agricultural exportations. As a raw estimation, about 50 million meters of polyethylene (plastic) are used on them”

That material may take 20 or even 1,000 years to degrade completely. In order to change this a group of students from the Universidad de Costa Rica composed of Daniela Palomo, José Eduardo Castro and Sebastián Hernández, developed a plastic that is around five times more resistant than normal bags and degrades within 18 months. The idea won the Fair of Entrepreneurship, Development and Innovation, held at that educational center at the end of 2016.

The researchers claimed the bags have other advantages as well, and one of the big ones is less energy required in the production of the eco-friendly bags.

“They burn bunker to generate heat, but we do not need to do that”, Sebastián Hernández affirmed. If they would have to run the process in heat, they could not add pesticide to the product, since it degrades with the temperature”, Palomo clarifies.

Besides, these young students consider that the material might have some other applications, like those used for disposable cutlery. Recently, the Universidad de Costa Rica prohibited the use of styrofoam at its campus, since it lasts almost a century to degrade. So the young students realize the presence of an important target there.