Environment and Climate
Turning Egypt's plastic waste into industrial raw material
Mariam Tarek Shawkat and her team are building Eco Eat, a venture that processes plastic waste into high-purity raw material for manufacturers, and placed third nationally in the Daera Green Innovation Competition.
Eco Eat starts with plastic waste and ends with raw material. The venture Mariam Tarek Shawkat is building with her team takes the plastic waste piling up in Egypt and processes it into "high-purity, premium raw materials ready to be reintegrated directly into industrial supply chains."
The team has moved past the conceptual phase, she says. They designed a business model and researched what local manufacturers require of recycled plastic. "Right now, we are transitioning from the initial prototyping stage into setting up our physical processing line and expanding our waste collection network," she says.
“I care deeply about proving that environmental sustainability is not a financial burden, but rather a powerful industrial and economic opportunity that can generate clean jobs while protecting our planet.”
Mariam Tarek Shawkat
The processing line comes next.
Eco Eat placed third nationally in the Daera Green Innovation Competition, in the plastic recycling track, sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
The drive behind Eco Eat, she says, "comes from a reality we witness daily." Plastic and industrial waste pollutes the local environment and drains resources, "when it could be the foundation of a thriving circular economy." That, she says, is what motivated them to act.
She is also a researcher. A student at 6th of October Technological University, she works on digital dental technology and artificial intelligence and has research published in Medical Sciences Forum (MDPI). She was named among the top five Hult Prize campus directors across the Middle East and North Africa for 2026, and took part in the Twin Transition Ideation Bootcamp run by UNDP and DEDI on Egypt's green and digital transitions.
"As a female researcher and leader in the sustainability space, I believe that scalable, data-driven solutions are key to achieving a truly circular economy," she says. The team, she says, is "bridging the gap between scientific innovation and market demand".