Every year, Americans throw away almost two billion pounds of polystyrene foam, commonly known as Styrofoam, which fills up our nation’s landfills. But what if we could prevent Styrofoam from being sent to the landfill by turning it into something useful? In this talk, Ashton Cofer speaks about his perseverance to find a way to convert Styrofoam waste into activated carbon for purifying water.

Ashton Cofer is a 9th grader at Columbus Academy. He is passionate about science and technology. He also enjoys playing soccer, tennis and snowboarding. Ashton Cofer has received several awards for his science project, including being a winner of the 2016 Google Science Fair. In addition to this, Ashton teaches robotics to kids in the Columbus area, and his robotics team has won international competitions around the world. He also plays the saxophone. His favorite activities, though, are to hang out with friends and go snowboarding or paintballing.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx