Blog 4: Miranda Wang Climate Actions
Miranda Wang is an entrepreneur, inventor and CEO of the company Biocellection. She works with her best friend Jeanny Yao. Her company aims to turn PL plastics waste into valuable chemicals. Miranda was in senior year of high school when she was first inspired to help contribute in the climate crisis of plastics. She went on a fieldtrip to a land field and was appalled by the massive amount of waste there was, and she noticed how the remains were primarily plastics. The plastics break down but never fully chemically disintegrate. At that time, she was studying science and wanted to figure out if there was a possible way to fully break down these plastics. She was given an opportunity to take on this challenge during a science fair; Miranda, her best friend and their professor worked on a research project for to find a solution for plastic biodegradation; since then they’ve continued their research and created their business BioCellection. They’ve invented a chemical process that breaks down the polyethylene plastics and turn it into valuable chemicals that can then be used to make numerous items, such as paint, nylons, performance materials used in cars, clothes, electronics and so on. Their goal is to further their research and get everyone aligned with their mission to solve the plastic problem. As of now their work is mainly laboratory but their goal for 2020 is to have a demonstration unit. Miranda said: “The next step– creating the demonstration unit– is a critical one in which we’re essentially taking science out of the lab and putting it into the realm of engineering.” Their first challenge is to solve the plastic film situation. Since most plastics aren’t recycled, they end up piling up in the land fields and floating in the oceans. Soon they say their will be more plastics in the ocean then fish. Their goal throughout their discoveries is also to diminish this issue in order to save marine life. On the Biocellection site, here is a video they demonstrated of an ocean filled with plastics. https://youtu.be/ArYLGNe-jCA
Miranda said in an interview on march 9th 2016: “We are half way finished building a genetically modified bacterium that can break down plastics about 80 times faster then the best known organism and we currently hold two provisional patens for this technology and like you said one of the downstream products of this science is that after the bacterium breaks down the plastic waste, because of the chemistry that happens in the cell, the cell is able to do this in a complete non toxic way, so the cell protein can actually be used to feed the fish and we`ve demonstrated 73 mortality rate.”
Here are some awards Miranda Wang innovation was recognized for.
- Rolex Awards for Enterprise Laureate
- UNEP Young Champion of the Earth
- Wharton Business Plan Competition Perlman Grand Prize Winner
- Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Prize, etc.….
-Briana Panaccione
Alternatives 