Date: Oct 01, 2012 Author: Carrie Haperin Source: ABC News (
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As a Ph.D. at Stanford University, Molly Morse came up with an innovative way to make biodegradable plastic. She felt like she had a world-changing idea, but needed the funding to make the idea a reality.
She just got a big boost to making that happen.
As part of the Clinton Initiative in New York on Sept. 23, Molly Morse and her company Mango Materials took home the 2012 Postcode Lottery's Green Challenge, beating out more than 500 entries of projects aiming to reduce C02 emissions entered in the world's largest environmental innovation prize. Thanks to the Postcode Lottery, Morse now has $630,000 to do help rid the world of petroleum based plastic.
Her process utilizes bacteria to turn methane into a biodegradable plastic, a material that can be used for almost anything made of plastic, which in today's world is almost anything. After use, Morse's plastic offers a better alternative to petroleum based plastic, because it can be sent to a landfill or digester and and turned back into biodegradable plastic without adding any CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
"Thanks to this generous prize, soon consumers will be able to buy goods from biodegradable plastic at an affordable price," Morse said at the event. "And that's going to be so much better for the environment. Our bioplastic is an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional plastic, which piles up in nature and garbage dumps."
