Turkish Teen 'Goes Bananas' to Win Award from Scientific American, Google

Banana peels are usually associated more with pratfalls and physical comedy than with the development of materials that could soon become components of advanced products and everyday goods.

However, late last month, Elif Bilgin, a 16-year-old girl from Turkey, was declared the winner of the second annual Scientific American “Science in Action Award,” powered by the Google (News - Alert) Science Fair. Bilgin won for her project, “Going Bananas! Using Banana Peels in the Production of Bio-Plastic as a Replacement for Traditional Petroleum-Based Plastic.” In addition to the $50,000 prize, Bilgin will have access to a year’s mentorship and has been invited to Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters in September to compete in the 15-to-16-year-old age category in the overall Google Science Fair.

“My project makes it possible to use banana peels, a waste material that is thrown away almost every day, in the electrical insulation of cables,” explained Bilgin. “This is both an extremely nature-friendly and cheap process, which has the potential to decrease the amount of pollution created due to the use of plastics, which contain petroleum derivatives.”

Image via Shutterstock

Scientific American’s independent judging panel elected Bilgin from a pool of 15 finalists who were culled from thousands of submissions from more than 120 countries for the 2013 Google Science Fair.

"Thomas Edison famously said, 'Genius (News - Alert) is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,'" says Mariette DiChristina, editor in chief of Scientific American and chief Google Science Fair judge. "He would have found a kindred spirit in Elif Bilgin, who spent two years toiling away on her project to develop a bioplastic from discarded banana skins.  We admire her persistence and her wonderful work."

Science in Action Award finalist Ann Makosinski, 16, from Canada, is also a Google Science Fair finalist in the 15-to-16-year-old age category. For her project, Makosinski created a flashlight that runs just on the heat of the human hand.

In September Bilgin and Makosinski will travel to Google’s headquarters to present their projects to an international panel of finalist judges, including science luminaries, technology innovators and Nobel (News - Alert) laureates. They will compete for prizes that include: $100,000 in scholarship funds; real-life experiences at CERN (the Switzerland-based European Laboratory for Particle Physics), Google or the LEGO Group; a trip to the Galápagos Islands courtesy of National Geographic Expeditions; and a $10,000 grant to the Grand Prize winner's school. The winners will be announced at a gala on September 23, which will be streamed live on the fair’s YouTube (News - Alert) channel.

Scientific American has been a partner with the Google Science Fair, an annual international online competition, since it launched in 2011. The Science in Action Award was created to recognize a project that can make a practical difference by addressing an environmental, health or resources challenge.

The winning Scientific American Science in Action project in 2012 was the “Unique Simplified Hydroponic Method,” developed by 14-year-olds Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela of Swaziland.

Edited by Alisen Downey