The greenest car ever!

–BY Nihar

What would be the greenest fuel you could imagine a car ran on? Solar, Electric, Hydrogen, Biogas??? Well prepare to be surprised. TATA Motors in collaboration with Motor Development International (MDI) – a French firm, is developing a car set to run on AIR…. 

Yes that is right, this pioneering car design is introducing an innovative zero- emission exhaust mechanism which uses compressed air for propulsion. The compressed air is stored in a tank at 30 psi and rather than sticking to a conventional engine piston with an ignited fuel-air mixture, air cars use the expansion of compressed air, in a similar manner to the expansion of steam in a steam engine. 

To add to the excitement, this futuristic car comes equipped with a joystick instead of a steering wheel, and will be able to accommodate three adults and a baby. The car’s tank can be filled at any compressed air station. The car will offer a range of 200 Kms and probably a top-speed of 80Km/h. 

The air engine greatly reduces the risk of injury risk in the event of high-impact crash since the fuel is non-flammable and in case it explodes, it produces no shrapnel. 

Currently, this car is in the prototype stage and still has a long way to go before it hits the road. There are a few kinks to be sorted out, a few safety guidelines to be met, etc. But, the people in TATA Motors are greatly optimistic that this car will become the norm by the next decade.. Fingers crossed!!!

Tyres from Tomato!

–BY Nachiket Gokhale

In future there are signs of production of motor tyres from agricultural residues along with the industries. Scientists have come up with technologies that would utilise tomato peels and egg shells for the production of tyre fillers

Since last few centuries the tyres were manufactured using petroleum products. Now these food wastes would replace these petroleum products. Scientists from Ohio state university have found out the technology for utilizing tomato peels to manufacture tyres which are more efficient and durable. Scientist Katerina Karnish says, due to this technology rubber products will become more durable and also would aid in utilising this food waste effectively. Any tyre contains 30% of Carbon Black. This carbon black is produced from petroleum products and delivers black colour and strength to the rubber. The increase in demands of tyres and the extinction of petroleum stocks, there is a need to find out alternative fillers which can be produced using the resources which are easily available and unutilized.

Farmers prefer cultivating breeds of tomato having thick peels as thick peels increase the life of tomatoes. These type of tomatoes are preferred by ketchup manufacturing industries. These industries only utilise the pulp of tomato and the peels are thrown away. These peels are now utilised to make tyre fillers.

Tyres made using tomato fillers are reddish in colour. Egg shell fillers give the necessary strength but lag in giving flexibility. These tomato Fillers add flexibility to the tyre.

Waste management of petha-waste

–BY Manasa P

Travellers will tell you that there’s no sight like the Taj Mahal gleaming on a full moon night. Every year, thousands of tourists from all over the world arrive in Agra to behold — and photograph — the Mughal marvel. But along with historical monuments, there is another icon in the city.

The petha is Agra’s most famous sweet, produced and sold in thousands across the city every day. Pethas are soft, translucent candies made from winter melons, also known as ash gourd. Historical records, and the people of Agra, mention that some of the earliest instances of pethas were found in the royal kitchens during the reign of Shah Jahan. Today, hundreds of stores sprinkled across Agra offer the original pethas and their many flavoured iterations. Delicious as they are however, pethas are one of the largest sources of waste in the city.

The team at Go Get Garbage, an Agra-based waste management initiative, has taken it upon themselves to clean the mess while keeping the heritage of the petha intact.

Agra is a city of contrast, dominated by a global tourism on one hand and by low civic standards on the other, says Rahul Jain, IIT-Roorkee alumni and founder of Go Get Garbage. Along with hospitality and leather manufacturing, the petha business comprises one of the city’s key industries with staggering production — and waste — estimates.

With the number of operational petha units in the city, the quantity of petha waste generated each day is estimated at 200 tonnes.As they gained in positive response in the city, the Go Get Garbage team transformed into a full-fledged initiative, intent on providing solutions.

It is also easier to manage petha waste than one might imagine. Being made from winter melons, the waste is bio-degradable. If stored separately and kept clean, the remains of these fruits make for excellent fertilizers that replenish the soil and remove toxicity. The team have engaged with Agra’s petha manufacturing associations to convert petha waste into compost.

The team is now setting up plans for a waste treatment facility with the aim to produce upto 250 tonnes of compost or fertilizers from petha waste.

          

The success of the project in Agra will pave the way for similar projects in other areas.

Plastics to fuel!

–BY Aparajita Dhoble

All around the globe companies and individuals are starting to produce fuel from waste plastic. As only 8% of waste plastic is recycled in the U.S., 15% in Western Europe, and much less in developing countries, this reuse of plastic could potentially keep enormous amounts of plastic out of landfills and out of the oceans.

Why Plastic Waste Is A Problem

Over 500 billion pounds of new plastic is manufactured each year and roughly 33% of that is single use and thrown away. As so little plastic is recycled, we need to reframe plastic waste as an underused resource vs. one that’s destined for the landfill.

If all plastic waste made it into the landfill, it would surely be mined in the future, but currently all plastic waste does not make it into our landfills. The United Nations estimates plastic accounts for four-fifths of the accumulated garbage in the world’s oceans. We need to stop polluting our oceans with plastic before it is too late, and start collecting all plastics suitable for this new, fairly simple, technology, a technology that is available now.

How Plastic Waste Is Turned Into Fuel

The technology is not overly complicated. plastics are shredded and then heated in an oxygen-free chamber (known as pyrolysis) to about 400 degrees celsius. As the plastics boil, gas is separated out and often reused to fuel the machine itself.

The fuel is then distilled and filtered. Because the entire process takes place inside a vacuum and the plastic is melted – not burned, minimal to no resultant toxins are released into the air, as all the gases and or sludge are reused to fuel the machine.

What Plastic Can Be Used?

For this technology, the type of plastic you convert to fuel is important. If you burn pure hydrocarbons, such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), you will produce a fuel that burns fairly clean. But burn PVC, and large amounts of chlorine will corrode the reactor and pollute the environment.

Burning PETE releases oxygen into the oxygen deprived chamber thereby slowing the processing, and PETE recycles efficiently at recycling centers, so it is best to recycle PETE traditionally. HDPE (jugs) and LDPE (bags and films) are basically polyethylene so usable as fuel as well, just slightly more polluting as a thicker heavier fuel is created. But additional processing can turn even HDPE into a clean diesel.

“Polyethylene and polypropylene are pure hydrocarbons, only they are arranged in long chains. If you chop those chains into shorter ones, you get oil, if you chop them even shorter, you get diesel, and if you chop them again, you get gasoline and eventually burnable gas.”

 

Improper disposal of sanitary waste

–BY Sreelakshmi, Reeha

A few days ago while scrolling through our news feed on Facebook,we came across a link posted by a website named youthkiawaaz.com.The link redirected to an article where it spoke at length about the ordeal faced by garbage pickers when they collected waste from households,especially poorly wrapped sanitary napkins.It highlighted the plight of a lady named Manwara Begum who goes around 300 houses to collect garbage everyday.They pay her in cash-not in dignity.Unwrapped sanitary waste exposes them to harmful pathogens like staphylococcus,hepatitis,E coli,salmonella,typhoid,etc. The humiliation that Manwara faces everyday isn’t unique. Waste-pickers and waste-collectors across urban India experience it daily.  Even when women wrap them up in newspapers, it is not distinguishable from other waste items and invariably ends up being opened.

In order to combat this,manufacturers should provide consumers adequately sized,separate and unique bags to discard the sanitary towels. Even if people in houses try to prevent this, they are unable to do so because the packaging provided by manufacturers for consumer-use are often insufficient for this purpose.

We went on to surf the internet for more details regarding this and apparently Pune’s SWaCH waste cooperative in collaboration with PMC has launched a Red Dot campaign where the volunteers used their creativity to  request people to securely wrap their sanitary waste in a newspaper and mark it with a “red dot”,which in turn helps them segregate the waste accordingly without the need of opening it.With the help of tshirts,mugs,mini push carts,posters and other merchandise,the campaign has made a great impact on the society.Extensive door to door outreach on the subject is being done to those residents who were not in favour of the campaign initially since the campaign coincides with a year long training program for SWaCH workers to improve their advocacy and awareness about sanitary issues.

This issue has intrigued us in such a way that it urged us to start an online petition on change.org.The link has been posted below.Those who wish to voice their opinion and bring about a change,please go ahead and cast your vote!

https://www.change.org/p/procter-gamble-provision-of-adequately-sized-envelopes-for-proper-disposal-of-sanitary-waste?recruiter=322510017&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_for_starters_page&utm_term=des-lg-no_src-no_msg

 

Water management in an Indian village.

–BY Uddeshya, Rahul, Himanshu, Dharampal, Akshay, Ghanshyam

As most of India deals with the drastic consequences of drought, find out how these villages in India are reaping the benefits of efficient water management and revival systems.Here  we will show that how PANCHGANI manage to restore water.

Spring Revival in Panchgani, Maharashtra

In the areas of Panchgani, springs were identified as an important water source. Years of neglect and destruction of ecology led to reduction in the number of springs. Grampari, a rural ecological centre, began a movement to revive springs in 2010. For instance, in a village called Akhegani, pumping water from dams was not a realistic solution, because it’s on a table top of the plateau, and proves a costly affair for the villagers. So instead, the village depends on borewells and two springs for its water requirements. Dr Jared Buono, a hydrologist with Grampari, explains to Mid-day the significance of springs:

A small portion of the monsoon rains can enter the rocks (layered with basalt) where it percolates down and hits an impervious layer. It then moves laterally and can emerge on the side of a mountain as a natural spring. Many mountains in the Western Ghats are also capped with laterite (a relatively porous rock) that absorbs much more rainfall. On these mountains, springs can be very large, providing a steady source of water throughout the year.

Water ATMs!

BY YSS Madhuri

Say Goodbye to Bottled Water – Water ATMs Dispense RO Water at Just Rs 5 per Litre!

Pi-lo water vending machines are making pure drinking water accessible and affordable to all. They are also attacking the plastic menace created by bottled water.

A team of engineers, automation experts, water technology experts and social workers decided to build drinking water ATMs – water vending machines that will dispense water that is purified using Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology at a cost that everyone can afford. For those who couldn’t afford these bottles priced at Rs 20 each, cheaply available water packets that are largely unsafe for consumption were the only source of water. The city had no other convenient and accessible public sources of drinking water. Presently it is in Delhi.

How is Pi-lo able to provide RO water at this price?

RO purified water is considered 100% pure for consumption. But the technology’s biggest downfall is the wastage. The usual rate of wastage in RO filters is as high as 40-50%. We decided on Zero Liquid Discharge technology, where 95% of the input water is made available for consumption. This helped us reduce the wastage cost. Then we decided that we will not spend any money on advertising. We decided to partner with public institutions and make our vending carts visibly available in public places. We also made sure that our water transportation cost is low by creating water source points across Delhi. All this helped us in keeping our pricing exceptionally low.

As much as the team wanted to keep the cost low, they also were obsessed with the quality of water. Pi-lo has a real time water quality display, something that no one in the country is currently doing. Its built-in sensors check purity in terms of TDS (Total Dissolved Solids), temperature and ph level of water and display these for the users in real time. They have also made testing kits available at the kiosks for people to check the water quality for themselves. The kiosks display and distribute printed information about the standard water purity indicators to create awareness. “If the water quality is below the standards, Pi-lo just shuts down and will not dispense water. Pi-lo stays away from plastic cups and bottles. Paper cups are made available and people are encouraged to bring their own bottles to fill water. Pi-lo kiosks have also started to sell copper and clay water bottles, which are considered healthier alternatives to plastic bottles. Pi-lo wants people to completely shun the habit of using plastic bottles.

The Pi-lo vending machines are located at over 80 locations, including 28 metro stations in Delhi-NCR. These coin-based self-service kiosks dispense close to 10,000 litres of pure water every day. Pi-lo is coming soon to Hyderabad and Chennai metro stations too. Plans are afoot to make Pi-lo available in schools, communities, supermarkets, and train and bus stations too.

 

 

Municipal waste Management

–BY Meghana K

Municipal solid waste (MSW) refers to waste in the form of organic material, paper, plastic, glass, metals, and other refuse collected by municipal authorities from the public (homes, offices, institutions, and commercial establishments).

Private Sector Startups for Managing Solid Waste in India:

From waste to 3D Printing: Protoprint, Pune .Protoprint is an enterprise based in Pune which partners with waste pickers to convert plastic waste into filaments for 3D printing. 3D printing is an additive manufacturing technique in which one can create, or “print”, objects layer by layer using raw material powder or filament as feedstock. Although 3D printing is still at the nascent stage in India, it has appeal as the technology of the future, and is increasingly seeing use to manufacture intricate geometries which are difficult to cast. Founded in 2013 by Siddhant Pai.

A solution to bio-degradable waste: GPS Renewables, Bangalore. GPS Renewables is a Bangalore enterprise that focusses on setting up compact waste-to- energy plants that convert bio-degradable kitchen waste into biogas, usable for cooking.

The idea of using kitchen and other organic waste to produce biogas has been around in India for a long time. However, installations have traditionally not taken off because of poor awareness and lackluster monitoring. Additionally, such setups typically require a steady inflow of bio- degradable waste to be sustainable and produce an output in usable quantities. If we overcome these hurdles, biogas plants hold immense potential to effectively manage bio-degradable waste in urban areas, especially in restaurants, community kitchens, housing societies, and other areas with a high volume of waste generation and aggregation.

Mainak Chakraborty and Sreekrishna Sankar set up GPS Renewables in 2011. They developed a prototype of a modular biogas system, christened BioUrja. BioUrja is a compact plug-and- play system that users can install anywhere with minimal civil work, and is perfect for bulk generators of bio- degradable waste.

Recycling the new type of waste: Karma Recycling, New Delhi. While paper and plastic waste continues to grow, people are also discarding an increasing number of laptops and mobile phones. Such products contain lead and other hazardous chemicals, which pose an additional threat to those handling it unscientifically. Akshat Ghiya and Aamir Jariwala started the e-waste recycling business called Karma Recycling in 2013. Karma Recycling buys old electronic devices from individuals and refurbishes or recycles them according to their condition. Karma recycling is changing this status quo in two ways. Firstly, it has tied up with physical stores across the country where individuals can sell off their unused gadgets. Secondly, it operates an online platform where individuals can get a quote for the device they need to sell. They can arrange the logistics thereafter for the transaction. Technology for Change: I Got Garbage, Bangalore Bangalore, one of the key urban agglomerations in India, generates more than 4,000 metric tons of solid waste daily. Around 90 % of this waste ends up in landfills.

On the other hand, informal workers divert around 600-800 metric tons of recyclable waste daily from these landfills. I Got Garbage (IGG), a Mind tree Consulting initiative, saw these rag pickers as a critical resource for SWM in Bangalore. IGG envisioned them as micro-entrepreneurs who could create employment if waste collection and recycling value chains became more predictable. IGG created an IT-based cloud platform. It connects rag-pickers to potential sources of MSW, and to potential scrap buyers interested in procuring the collected waste. Besides providing access to the platform, IGG has recently also started training rag-pickers to help them operate more efficiently.

Bio-digester toilet

–BY Manojni, Nikitha, Gulabi

A  green toilet complex has been started in Madurai (Tamil Nadu) in 2015. It functions with the bio-digester technology designed by DRDO. The bio digester technology was modeled on an eco friendly working model and eliminated the need of maintenance .

Anaerobic bacteria is feed into the bio digester tanks, which decomposes fecal matter into effluents & gas which are odorless. The bacteria need to be fed into the tanks only once at the start of the functioning .the bio-digester  do not emit odors in contrast to conventional septic tanks.

The bio-gas produced could simply be left off into the  atmosphere or used for cooking and in water heaters.

 

 

Revolutionary programme that transformed Bengal village!

BY Yogitha

Not everyone is capable of a lot of capital investment in agriculture, but that should not seal the person’s fate to be doomed. It was essential to have respect for the soil with a resolute will to bring back its fertility through scientific and consistent intervention, they reasoned. A restored soil led the key to a better future. Thus was born the institution FAIDA(Food and Agriculture Integrated Development Action) , run as a trust and having slowly found acceptance of its philosophy in 13 states of India after a decade of hard work.

Farm Philosophy:

FAIDA’s agricultural philosophy is to equip farmers with a fertilizer that restores the health of the soil and helps put in place an adulteration-free production practice that improves food quality and ultimately puts an end to the farmer’s dependence on external agricultural inputs to produce his own food.

The manure constitutes a combination of rock phosphate, gypsum, pyrite, lime, mustard dressings (khol), neem fruit dressings, and vermicompost, blended in a ratio that is decided according to the nature of the soil in that geographical region. This effectively neutralizes the havoc wrought by using DAP (di-ammonium phosphate) in the soil. Using this manure will lower the farmer’s production costs and increase his yield, and this practice should consistently be replicated.

To encourage the partial sourcing of manure from cows, FAIDA started the Nandalal Gaushala Project. Under this project, cows would provide both milk products, and contribute to the making of manure for chemical pesticide-free agriculture, and be used in a variety of other profitable uses. A village producer society would work with up to 25 milch cows, and not more than that. The project divides the profit accruing from the ownership of the cow in a 50:50 ratio between the owner and the producer.