3rd prize – BioCycle – Identified a waste stream of menstrual products which are already collected in bathrooms. With a redesigned collection bin, they would utilize bioreactors to degrade the segregated product and turn the non-biodegradable plastic into usable carbon-based industrial dyes and biosurfactants. Kshin Patel, Krystal Yang, Nathan Rudd, Richard Xie, Prikanksha Shah, and Anjali Rawal
2nd prize – Sort Scan Save the Plastic – Identify bioplastics at the municipal level with a doping process to highlight the bioplastic material, sort this plastic out of the regular waste stream, then degrade the sorted bio-plastics and convert to valuable compounds to resell to industries. Fiona La, Kathy Tran Vo, Saroosh Ashraf, Jordan Lam, and Diana Khater
1st prize – BioRCT (bioreacte) – Integrated bioreactor concept that used modified bacterial strains to break PET plastic down to small molecules, with CO2 captured by algae and valuable products generated. Jonathan van der Veen, Lawrentina D'Souza, Jasmin Zhang, Hugh Dawson, Kuan-Chieh Chao, and Laurel Pierroz-Wong
Hack the Plastics volunteers
