Arya Satheesh’s Eco Purge is a biodegradable plastic that breaks down safely, while releasing catalysts helping to remove existing microplastics from the nearby environment.

An 18-year-old Irish woman has been named the European category winner of the 2026 Earth Prize for her creation of a biodegradable plastic that can also break down surrounding environmental microplastics.

Arya Satheesh’s Eco Purge is a biodegradable plastic that breaks down safely, while releasing catalysts helping to remove existing microplastics from the nearby environment.

Satheesh and six other continental winners – to be announced throughout this week – will each receive $12,500 to further develop and implement their ideas, with the aid of 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 into tiny pieces that stay in our environment. I wanted to create something that could help tackle that 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 become a scalable solution that makes a real difference.”

With support from the Earth Prize, Satheesh plans to scale the solution for real-world use in products like packaging and compost bags, making it easier to tackle microplastic pollution on a larger scale. She has previously collaborated with researchers at University College Dublin and Atlantic Technological University in Letterkenny.

Satheesh was inspired by an earlier project monitoring water quality and learning that although microplastics could be detected, they not be removed.

She then explored how plastics break down and developed a plant-based plastic that can carry special enzymes which remain stable and are released gradually as the material degrades, allowing them to continue breaking down microplastics in different environments like water, soil and compost.

The Earth Prize is the flagship initiative of the Earth Foundation, a 2019-founded nonprofit based in Geneva, Switzerland that aims to empower, educate and inspire young people to tackle environmental challenges.

It describes the prize for 13- to 19-year-olds as the world’s largest environmental competition and ideas incubator for young people, with an ambition to “inspire and empower the next generation of environmental innovators, supporting participants with the tools they need to develop eco solutions for real-world impact”.

“The Earth Prize winners 2026 represent seven outstanding teams across seven global regions, each tackling environmental challenges with distinct and impactful solutions,” said Earth Foundation founder Peter McGarry.

“Once again, these young innovators demonstrate that age is no barrier to meaningful change. Their work reflects 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 across all submissions for the 2026 prize, while most participants were aged 14-17.

Public voting for the 2026 global winner will open next Monday (18 May). Registration for participation in next year’s competition is open now.

In 2025, the European winner also won the global prize; in 2024, a US team won the global award.

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