Wileidy Enid Feliciano-Rivera, a seventh-grade student from Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, watched plantain peels pile up every day in her school cafeteria.
Rather than treat them as waste, she decided to turn them into EcoMusa, a bioplastic material designed for use as agricultural mulch. 🍌🌱
Over four weeks, she tested two formulations and observed a 47 % and 53 % reduction in weeds, as well as greater moisture retention and soil temperatures between 1 and 3 °C lower than on uncovered surfaces. Her school research, now in its second phase, was selected as one of the 30 finalists in the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge 2026.
Although it is not yet a commercial solution, her project shows how cafeteria waste could be transformed into a material with the potential to reduce the use of plastic mulch in agriculture.