Even though they bear little responsibility for the current state of the world's environment, young people have been taking the initiative in tackling problems from rising global temperatures to plastic pollution.
Sheyna Patel, a 14-year-old from Orlando, Florida, is a prime example of how young people have been working hard to find solutions for serious issues that they did not cause. Sheyna developed an innovative new hydrogel that removes microplastics from water, an invention for which she has been recognized as a finalist in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, according to West Orlando News.
"I entered the 3M Young Scientist Challenge because of my passion for STEM research and environmental preservation," Sheyna told the 3M Young Scientists Lab. "This competition offers me a chance to showcase my findings and represent the innovative ideas I have toward tackling real-world problems."
Sheyna's hydrogel is non-toxic and works like a sponge, sucking up plastic and effectively removing 93% of PET microplastics from water, according to The Australia Today.
Microplastics and plastic pollution more broadly pose a significant threat to human health, food and drinking water supplies, and the environment. Unlike organic materials, plastics do not biodegrade. Instead, they break up into smaller and smaller pieces, becoming microplastics and even tinier nanoplastics.
Microplastics have contaminated every corner of the globe, having been detected in the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the food we eat.
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The world produces about 495 million tons of plastic every year, a stunning increase from the roughly 2.2 million tons produced in 1950, according to Our World in Data. Of the plastic produced today, between 1.1 and 2.2 million tons end up in the oceans annually.
While experts say that much research remains to be done to better understand the impacts that microplastics have on human health, substantial evidence already exists that microplastics and nanoplastics can have serious health consequences.
"There are so many unknowns," said Bernardo Lemos of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, according to the publication Harvard Medicine. "But we are seeing more data that suggest microplastics affect human biology."
Studies have found that microplastics can cause damage to DNA and changes to gene activity, which are known risks for cancer development, according to Harvard Medicine.
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Despite the massive scale of the plastic pollution problem and the severe threats it poses to human health, young people like Sheyna offer hope that the next generation will find innovative solutions that help tackle the environmental challenges that they have inherited.
When asked by the 3M Young Scientists Lab where she hopes to be in 15 years, Sheyna responded that she hopes to be "in a leadership role within a field I'm passionate about, driving innovation, mentoring others, and contributing to meaningful advancements that benefit not only my organization, but society as a whole in STEM."
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