There are many pressing issues facing our world. Climate change driven by human activity is probably the most urgent. Another issue, however, is the by-products of industry, such as microplastics. Microplastics are defined as small bits, smaller than 5 millimeters in length, that collect in our wastewater and make it through most filtration systems into our oceans and rivers. Subsequently, everything living in those bodies of water is affected—from coral reefs ingesting plastics to the entire marine food chain. There’s a good chance that anything you’ve eaten in the past week had a little bit of plastic in it.

A teenager from an island off of southern Ireland, inspired by the remnants of an oil spill, has come up with a novel way to use NASA-invented magnetic liquid to extract microplastics from water. Eighteen-year-old Fionn Ferreira hypothesized that he could pull out about 85% of the microplastics in his experiment. As Business Insider explains, NASA engineer Steve Papell, in trying to magnetize rocket fuel in 1963 to combat zero-gravity conditions in space, created the first ferrofluid.

Ferreira created his own ferrofluid using a combination of oil and magnetite powder. He added the ferrofluid into water containing microplastics and then, after those plastics attached themselves to the fluid, he extracted them using a magnet. According to Forbes, Ferreira ran 1,000 tests and was able to show that his “method was 87% effective in removing microplastics of all sorts from water.”

On Monday, Ferreira won and received Google Science Fair's $50,000 grand prize. The Irish Times writes that Ferreira has won 12 science awards over the past few years and “has a minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in recognition of his achievement at the 2018 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.”

Fionn Ferreira explains that, while he is excited that his research might lead to some worthwhile Band-Aids for our microplastics issues, the solutions for our environmental pollution problems are still on us: "I'm not saying that my project is the solution. The solution is that we stop using plastic altogether."

This morning I flossed and brushed my teeth. All by myself. So I’m feeling pretty good about that.