A senior in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the idea came to Prawira while spending time with her family. She noticed that the scales of fish made for dinner one night had similar properties to plastics—both are fairly strong, thin, somewhat flexibly, and lightweight. Unlike plastics, however, Prawira’s material breaks down in marine environments.
“We basically made plastics to be too good at their job. That also means the environment doesn’t know what to do with this, because they simply won’t degrade,” Prawira told MIT News. “And now we’re literally drowning in plastic. By 2050, plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean.”
Prawira’s fish scale material is suitable for single-use products such as utensils and shopping bags.
“I’m hoping that we can have daily lives that can be more in sync with the environment,” Prawira said during her interview for Vioneers. “So you don’t always have to choose between the convenience of daily life and having to help protect the environment.”