Page 25 - Highlights for Children (April 2020)

Teens’

Two-Fold

Invention

EPS—expanded polystyrene foam—is
the white, lightweight stuff used to make
things like insulated cups, takeout-food

containers, foam egg cartons, and
packing “peanuts.” Often called
Styrofoam, it’s mostly air with about
5 percent plastic, but it takes up a lot
of space and is difficult to recycle. In

addition to crowding landfills, EPS
breaks into small pieces as it floats down
waterways into oceans, harming wildlife
along the way.

Three teenagers in Ohio worked
together to invent a way to not only
keep it out of landfills but to filter water
as well. Frustrated by seeing EPS
pollution, eighth-graders Julia Bray,

Luke Clay, and Ashton Cofer looked at
EPS’s chemical makeup and saw that it
was mostly carbon. That sparked an
idea. Could they turn it into activated

carbon, a material that filters toxins
from water?
After 50 hours of experiments,
including one that accidentally set the
family grill on fire, they succeeded!

Now they are working with businesses
to develop the idea so that people
everywhere can recycle EPS, resulting
in less litter and cleaner water.

PROTEST POWER

At age 15, Greta Thunberg (at right) of Sweden held a one-person protest, sitting
outside Sweden’s legislature to call for more action against climate change. Her
activism since then has inspired millions of people worldwide. Letters and petitions

can also help raise awareness. Athena Hanna, age 9, and her family wrote to
Highlights and started a petition, encouraging us to reduce our use of plastic. Having
already decreased the number of magazines mailed in plastic to 6 percent, we were
spurred by their efforts to try to keep improving that number.