Eritrea’s first project of Biodegradable Plastic from Brown Seaweed

Our guests today — Sophia Haile, Rodas Berhane, Sinit Solomon, Samrawit Fanuel and Sabir Abdelalim – won as a team this year’s Total Energies’ challenge in the “Cycle ‘Up” category. The competition was held on the occasion of the company’s centennial, and 100 entrepreneurs from across the African continent have been recognized and given awards in three categories.

Thank you for your time. Please introduce yourselves.

Thank you for having us. We are the winners of this year’s start upper challenge of the “Cycle’Up” category. Our group has five members, four females and one male. We all went to Sawa as members of the 32nd batch after completing high school and then went to the College of Science and Technology at Mai-Nefhi, where we earned Bachelor’s Degrees in Chemical Engineering. We are now working as teachers in different parts of the country — Asmara, Adi Tekelezan sub zone, Shambiko sub zone and Foro sub zone — as part of our one-year service before graduation.

What is Total Energies start upper challenge about?

It is a program of the oil company, Total Energies, and the purpose of the challenge is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship and support the socio-economic development of African countries where the company operates. The challenge strengthens local communities by helping the continent’s most innovative entrepreneurs work on their projects. It has been held in Eritrea twice. This year’s is the third and it has been held on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the company.

Total Energies gives awards to three winners from the three categories: “Innov’Up” for the best entrepreneur, “Cycle ‘Up,” for the best project related to the circular economy and “Power ‘Up” for the best project related to sustainable and affordable energy. Fifty-six people took part in the competition this year, and our project has been named the best project in the “Cycle ‘Up” category.

What was your project about?

Our project’s title is “Production of Biodegradable Plastic from Brown Seaweed.” We all know that our earth is suffering from plastic waste that takes ages to degrade, and we had a feeling that something ought to be done about it. So, when the time came to choose and work on a project in our final year in college (in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a bachelor’s degree in engineering), we chose to work on plastic. In our research to understand the current problems associated with plastic and its influence on our planet and people’s lives, we found some solutions that promote the use of natural products such as rice, corn and seaweed.

We started looking for natural products that can be found easily but do not result in food insufficiency for humans or animals. In our research we discovered that brown seaweed can be used as an alternative to plastic. We went through a rigorous analysis and testing to come up with a product made of sea weed that is practical and safe to use, and we were finally able to create a biodegradable product that can compete with plastic in its strength and quality.

After winning the first prize we were given the money award we needed to make a prototype. With our prototype we are in a better position to secure funding to be able to enhance the visibility of our project.

Attempts have been made in many first world countries and there are companies that produce ecofriendly products that can replace plastic but they aren’t affordable. We are fortunate to have easy access to natural resources like seaweed that enables us to make our project practical.

How did this opportunity make you feel?

We were extremely excited when we heard that we won. You know students don’t usually continue to work on their projects after graduating from college no matter how good their projects are. But we were fortunate that Total Energies created an opportunity that made us excited to test our project on the ground and help solve some environmental problems. We were motivated to work on our project because of the assistance we received from governmental organizations.

What is the secret to your success?

It was teamwork that made us go all the way. If one of us feels like giving up, the rest of the team would stand there and motivate the person to keep going. And we are all very stubborn in what we do and didn’t leave room for giving up. We used some comments that were meant to discourage us from pursuing our dreams as motivation to show people that we can do it despite the challenges that might come our way.

As young engineers, what suggestions do you have for other young people?

A piece of advice that we would love to give to young people is that they should keep following their dreams. People shouldn’t give up. The problem is in the attitude. As young people, we shouldn’t leave any negativity in the back of our minds, especially when we are trying to achieve something. The possibility of your project working out should be your point of motivation. If you fail in the end, it’s still alright as you have already learned a lot from the process you went through. Take the first step and everything else works out in your favor, especially with the right attitude. So our advice to young people is to just have a dream and work towards achieving it with the right mindset and with discipline and commitment. At the end of the day, you’ll achieve your dreams or learn a valuable lesson as the fruit of your own hands is amazing.

What’s next for you all in the field of engineering?

We actually have a plan as a team that if this works out, we will not stop here. We will continue to search for things that are going to help solve the society’s problems. At the moment we are all working as teachers, and we feel it is a good way to give back to the society. But our plan is to apply what we learned about chemical engineering and come up with more products that will be beneficial to our society. As a young nation we can learn from the mistakes of the developed world and engage in research on finding and developing ecofriendly products.

Anything else you’d like to add…

 We are grateful to our families who have supported us all the way, our advisor Mr. Ramesh A. Babu, and people who helped us throughout the whole process of our project. And we are grateful for the opportunity to present our idea.

Thank you. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors!