AN IRISH STUDENT has been named as the European winner of the world’s largest environmental competition for teenagers.

Eighteen-year-old Arya Satheesh’s development of a biodegradable plastic, Eco Purge, nabbed her the European win at The Earth Prize 2026 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Satheesh is one of the seven regional winners of the competition, which is open to people aged between 13 and 19.

Her product Eco Purge breaks down safely, and releases catalysts that help remove existing microplastics from the environment. The project took a different approach than other solutions to microplastic pollution, which mostly focus on reducing plastic use, by having properties that help clean up existing pollution.

Satheesh was inspired by an earlier project that monitored water quality. She saw an issue with how microplastics could be detected but not removed, and set about trying to find a solution.

She decided to explore how plastics break down. From there, she developed a plant-based plastic that can carry special enzymes. 

“By embedding these enzymes inside the material, they remain stable and are released gradually as the plastic degrades, allowing them to continue breaking down microplastics in different environments like water, soil and compost,” the product is explained.

Eco Purge has now been developed into a working prototype. Satheesh has collaborated with researchers at University College Dublin (UCD) and Atlantic Technological University (ATU) Letterkenny, and Ireland’s national research centre for sustainable bioeconomy development, BiOrbic Bioeconomy Research Centre.

Explaining her idea, Arya said, “I wanted to create something that could help tackle that problem directly.

“Eco Purge is designed to both replace plastic and help remove existing microplastics, and this is just the beginning.”

She said she hopes it can become a scalable solution “that makes a real difference”.

Public voting for the global winner opens on 18 May. Votes can be cast here.