Arya Satheesh’s Eco Purge is a biodegradable plastic that breaks down safely, while releasing catalysts that help remove existing microplastics from the surrounding environment.
An 18-year-old Irish woman has won the European category of the 2026 World Prize for her creation of a biodegradable plastic that can also break down smaller plastics around it.
Arya Satheesh’s Eco Purge is a biodegradable plastic that breaks down safely, while releasing catalysts that help remove microplastics from the surrounding environment, according to contest organizers.
Satheesh and six other continental winners – to be announced later this week – will each receive $12,500 to develop and implement their ideas, with mentoring and other learning resources, before a global winner is chosen by public vote at the end of May.
“Plastic pollution doesn’t just disappear, it breaks down into small pieces that stay in our environment. I wanted to create something that could help tackle this problem directly,” said Satheesh.
“Eco Purge is designed to both replace plastic and help remove existing microplastics, and this is just the beginning, and I hope it can be a critical solution that makes a real difference”.
With help from the World Prize, Satheesh plans to scale the solution for real-world use in products such as packaging bags and compost, making it easier to tackle microplastic pollution on a large scale. He has worked with researchers at University College Dublin and Atlantic Technological University in Letterkenny.
Satheesh was inspired by an earlier project to monitor water quality and learn that although microplastics can be detected, they are not removed.
He then explored how plastics break down and created a plant-based plastic that could carry special enzymes that remain stable and are slowly released as the material breaks down, allowing them to continue breaking down microplastics in different environments such as water, soil and compost.
The Earth Prize is a flagship program of the Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2019 based in Geneva, Switzerland that aims to empower, educate and inspire young people to tackle environmental challenges.
It describes the award for children aged 13-19 as the largest competition in the environmental world and an incubator of young people’s ideas, with the desire to “encourage and empower the next generation of environmental innovators, supporting participants with the tools they need to develop eco-solutions with real-world impact”.
“Earth Prize 2026 winners represent seven outstanding teams in seven regions around the world, each tackling environmental challenges with unique and impactful solutions,” said Earth Foundation founder Peter McGarry.
“Once again, these young innovators show that age is no barrier to meaningful change. Their work demonstrates a powerful combination of creativity, determination and a deep understanding of the communities they serve.”
Waste management, water pollution and non-renewable energy were the most popular themes in all submissions for the 2026 award, while the majority of participants were aged 14-17.
Public voting for the 2026 global winner will open next Monday, May 18. Registration to participate in next year’s competition is now open.
In 2025, the European winner also won the world prize; in 2024, the American team won the world prize.
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