Ashton Cofer is a young inventor who had a mission with obstacles and never gave up. His motto is ‘There’s no harm in trying,’ which means even if you fail several times, it’s better to try than give up without knowing if you could have succeeded. In one of Ashton’s attempts to recycle styrofoam (polystyrene), he even caught his family’s grill on fire, but he didn’t give up, he kept trying.
Ashton said:
It was just an ordinary Saturday. My dad was outside mowing the lawn, my mom was doing the housework, my sister was in her room doing homework, and I was in the basement playing video games. When I came upstairs to get something to drink, I looked out the window, and I saw the grill on fire. It wasn’t my family’s dinner but my science project.
Ashton was not alone in his mission to recycle styrofoam; two determined teammates were working together with him on this project. The inspiration to start recycling styrofoam came when his teammates took a trip to Central America and noticed that all the beaches had a significant amount of styrofoam litter.
Ashton explained:
Since there aren’t any good methods to recycle styrofoam, almost all of them end up in the landfills, or the oceans and beaches, taking over 500 years to degrade.
Since recycling styrofoam is potentially contaminated and too expensive, the young students tried to find a way to keep using styrofoam and benefiting from it, without causing harm to the environment. “I and my team have thought of using the carbon that’s already in polystyrene to create activated carbon, which is used in almost every water filter because thanks to the small micropores, the coal is able to filter out contaminants from water or even air,” explained Ashton.
The team set to work, they did a variety of tests and got poor results. This was when Ashton caught his dad’s grill on fire. At one point, the group thought they wanted to give up because of all the failed attempts. However, they didn’t give up, and the next thing they knew, they hit the jackpot. With the right temperatures, times, and chemicals, the team produced activated carbon from styrofoam waste for purifying water.
Three young inventors have solved two global issues with just one solution; reducing styrofoam waste by turning it into activated carbon for purifying water. The project has already received funding from different associations, and the team is planning to file a full patent as well.
