YOUNG inventor Olive Forbes’ dream came true when she was named a finalist of Origins littleBIGidea competition.
“I don’t want to forget this because it’s been one of the most amazing things in my life,” the 11-year-old said.
The Year Six Iona Presentation Junior School student is the only student in WA to be named one of 11 top young inventors in Australia.
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READ NOWThe Coogee resident, who is part of the competition’s Year Five and Six category, has created a Pollution Solution Compost Bin designed to reduce plastic pollution through the use of wax moth larvae to break down plastic.
Her prototype features a home-based humidity controlled glass dome where wax worms can breed, eat and live safely.
Miss Forbes said the liquid worm waste, produced by her invention, would be used as fertiliser when diluted.
“I did this project on plastic and started researching about the horrible effects it has on the environment and came across wax worms,” she said.
“If we had these wax worms in our houses to breakdown 1.25 billion tons of plastic we produce every year it could save the world and so I invented a home based wax worm compost bin.”
Miss Forbes has a one in four chance of being crowned one of Origin’s littleBIGidea national winners which would win her a trip to NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in the USA.
The young inventor has plans to one day work as an environmental engineer so she can continue inventing solutions to environmental issues.
“My passion for the environment comes from the need to protect the things that I love and care about,” she said.
“The beauties of nature and the thought we’re destroying is hard to think of – we need to find a way to decompose plastic otherwise our world won’t have a chance.”
Miss Forbes won $2500 as a finalist.
She said she will put the money towards either her dog’s surgery or an Iona Presentation School space camp to the USA.
National winners, one from each category, will be announced in late November.