Hey Rebels, it’s time to slow down and let the day go. If you want, take a deep breath in… and let it out… ahhhh. Now imagine you’re at the beach (1)…It’s a beautiful day… the soft white sand is warm beneath you, the sun is shining in every direction and the sparkling blue waters roll in gentle waves… (2)

Let your body get loose and relaxed as you picture yourself stepping up to the shoreline… (3)…and feel the waves tickling your toes.
If you like, close your eyes and just listen to the sounds of this magical place… (4)

This is my home. It’s a special spot off the coast of Sydney, Australia called Botany Bay…

And we’re going to hear the story of a rebel named Angelina Arora, who has been swimming in these waters her whole life and loves them as much as I do.

Oh yeah… I forgot to mention, there’s a reason I live in the ocean. I’m a green sea turtle! My official name is chelonia mydas… but you can call me Mo. I have big paddle-like flippers and am almost four feet long. I mostly eat algae but I especially love munching on seagrass. I’m kinda like an underwater lawn mower. Sea turtles like me have been gliding through the ocean for over 100 million years…but lately, that’s gotten harder and harder to do because my home is getting clogged up with… plastic.

Angelina is my hero because she’s doing everything she can to protect the oceans. Follow me and I’ll show you how…

First, let me take you on a little tour of this beautiful bay.

Ahhh, I love the way the sunlight shimmers through the surface, turning everything a spectacular turquoise color. This incredible bay is also called Kamay. And the first nations people who live here — the Dharawal people — are part of the oldest continuous living civilization in the world! For over 60,000 years, Aboriginal Australians have cared for and lived in harmony with my home… making sure everything lived in balance.

There’s so much going on down here! If you listen closely, you can hear my pals, the dolphins and humpback whales passing by on their way to Antarctica. Botany Bay also has bright blue groper fish, stripey fiddler rays, purple tube anemones, and weedy sea dragons .

And aaaah some delicious seagrass. I’m just gonna swim over here and have a little nibble…
(nom nom … splutters)
Oh no! See that clear thing wrapped around my patch of seagrass? It’s one of those yucky plastic bags. Sometimes I mistake them for food and they make me sick!

There’s more and more plastic here every day. Bags, bottles, straws, lolly wrappers… and that’s just the plastic we can see. If the plastic floats in the ocean long enough, the sun and seawater break it down into tiny little pieces called microplastics, which is just as yucky. And it’s harmful to me and my underwater friends!

You see, the ocean is one big ecosystem and everything inside of it matters. Even the seagrass. Did you know that seagrass captures carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests? That means seagrass is not only delicious, it helps keep the air we breathe clean. Without green turtles like me munching on the seagrass, even that could go away…

Bu​​t this is where my friend Angelina comes in. She is leading the way to a cleaner, brighter future… one bag at a time.

Angelina has always been a girl who is full of questions, like “How does this work?” and “Why’s the sky blue?”
Angelina grew up near my home. She’s a science wiz and loves trying to solve problems. As she says, science is “the key to all the mysteries in the world.”

When Angelina was in grade 9 at Sydney Girls High School, she was supposed to design an original science project for class. Every day she thought long and hard about what she could do. She didn’t want to just get good grades. She wanted to do something that could make a real difference in the world. But what?

Then, one day when she was shopping for groceries, inspiration struck. BEEP She got to the counter with her things, and asked for a plastic bag.
“Sure, but that will be ten more cents,” said the cashier.
“Really? Why?”
The cashier explained that it was to get people to stop using plastic bags because they’re so bad for the environment.
“Ooh, that’s smart,” Angelina thought. Her mind started racing. There were so many things made out of plastic. What if there was a different material that people could use? One that was more earth-friendly?

Angelina decided she was going to try to make this new material. She knew it had to be flexible, lightweight, and easy to decompose. Also, strong enough to hold her groceries. First, she went to her school lab and started experimenting. She toiled over beakers and bunsen burners, trying out all kinds of things, like potatoes, tapioca …even banana peels! But none of them quite worked. Then, she thought about starch. Starch is a carbohydrate that’s in lots of foods, like wheat and corn.

Angelina knew that if you mix starch with water you could make glue, which was strong but it dried hard. So, she started adding things to her mixture, wondering what would make it more flexible. A little bit of this; a little bit of that. It got very frustrating at times, like when her mixtures smoked and fizzled or just fell apart.

Until…she tried mixing starch with glycerine, which is a kind of vegetable oil. It looked like the right texture, but there was something missing. So, she slowly added vinegar to bind it all together…and TA DA! She did it!

Angelina had made a new kind of plastic that was strong, flexible, and most importantly, wasn’t harmful for the planet!

Her discovery won her first prize for chemistry in the New South Wales Young Scientist Awards. Her picture was in the newspaper! But, there was just one problem. Angelina’s new plastic couldn’t get wet. So if it was raining, or she was carrying frozen groceries, her bag fell apart.

It was a good start… but she knew she hadn’t saved the oceans from our plastic problem. At least, not yet…

Angelina was determined to go back to the drawing board and start again.

She thought day and night about what could create a better plastic. She thought about it in school, after school, while she was practicing clarinet… Until one day, when Angelina was at a fish and chip shop and saw a pile of shells from the shrimp — or as we call them in Australia, prawns. The prawn shells were glistening in the light. They looked shiny and clearish…like plastic??

Wait! That was it!
Maybe whatever was in prawn shells that did this could be Angelina’s secret ingredient!

She went back to the lab. This time, she had access to lots of fancy equipment because a group of scientists who’d read about her discoveries invited her to their laboratory to keep working on her ideas. With the help of these scientists she found a special carbohydrate in prawn shells called ‘chiten’. It’s light, strong, and it won’t come apart when it’s wet! Angelina knew she was close.The only problem was Chiten wasn’t flexible.

Hmmm…She thought, and thought. She looked around at all the different materials in the lab. She needed something that was soft and durable; rubbery, yet tough. She actually found her answer outside in nature. Silkworms! Silkworms are incredible insects who spin sturdy cocoons. Silkworms also have an insoluble protein inside them called fibroin.

What if she used some of this for her experiment?

It took a lot of tries with different measurements and proportions, but Angelina found the magic combo! Fibroin from silkworms plus chitin from prawn shells made…a new, earth-friendly plastic!

Angelina had done it for real this time — she’d created a new material that was strong and flexible. And, her bioplastic broke down one and a half million times quicker than regular plastic — completely disappearing into the soil in just 33 days. This meant it wouldn’t float around, clogging up the seas, and hurting sea creatures, like me. Plus, because it was made of natural materials, when it broke down it released nitrogen, a chemical that actually helps plants grow.

Angelina was so excited. So was I! All of us here at Botany Bay had a big ole underwater dance party to celebrate. Angelina won many awards and journalists all over the world interviewed her. She appeared on television, radio, podcasts, and gave talks in front of hundreds of people. In fact, she still does, inviting everyone to help find new ways to protect our planet and its oceans.
As Angelina says, “Believe me, we can do it!”

So Rebels, as you drift to sleep, I hope you feel the current of clear blue waters and wondrous possibilities lifting you up and holding you safe. I hope you imagine a shimmering horizon and hear the tides flowing in and out, in and out.

Connecting us all, on this magical, mysterious planet.

This podcast is a production of Rebel Girls. It’s based on the book series Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.

This episode was narrated by Veronica Milsom. It was produced and sound designed by F+K Media. It was written by F+K Media and edited by Abby Sher. Fact checking by Joe Rhatigan. The executive producer is Joy Smith.

A special thanks to the whole Rebel Girls team, who make this podcast possible!

Until next time, staaaay rebel!