ecofriendly innovations
TRANSCRIPT
Class 8-E
To: Mrs. Harleen Singh
Group members: Tanay Gopal (L),
Jaskaran Singh, Gurnehmat Kaur Dhindsa,
Anshnoor Kaur, Sehaj Singh
Index:
INTERNATIONAL INNOVATIONS:
Bioplastic from banana peels
Pencil printer
Biodiesel made from sugar catalyst
INDIAN INNOVATIONS:
Plastic cotton for mattresses and bricks
Halodu: Instrument for weeding crops in mountains
Bio-Plastic from
Banana Peels
What comes to your mind when you think about discarded banana peels? Definitely not making plastic out of it! but ElifBilgin, 16, of Istanbul, Turkey made this task, which sounds impossible, true. She is the winner of the 2013 $50,000 Science in Action award, part of the third annual Google Science Fair. Bilgin spent two years toiling away on her project.
The ingredients to make Bilgin’s plastic are relatively benign. As she wrote in her entry materials, “it is possible to say that one could do it at home.” In her research, she learned that starch and cellulose are used elsewhere in the bioplasticindustry (such as from the skin of mangoes) and made the leap that banana peels might be suitable feedstock sources as well. The young scientist says that the banana
bioplastic could be used for the electrical insulation of
cables.
Elif Bilgin : in the Google science fair and in her kitchen making bio plastic out of
banana peels
Pencil Printer
What do you do when you use your pencil completely and the pencil
stubs are left. You can't join them and make a new long one. No
worries, Hoyoung Lee has another alternative, how about using them to
print on paper. Yes, like a printer that uses pencil to print your
documents. How about a portable desktop printer that prints out pages
you can erase? Beyond being a great, green and cheap alternative to
buying endless colored ink cartridges, the prints themselves have a
hand-made feel that only comes from that traditional graphite we all
associate with hand-written letters and memos. There is also a
section of eraser dust, making this quite possibly the only printer idea designed to not only produce text or images on paper, but to even allow you to ‘delete’ what you have done as needed!
Version two this ingenious idea by
designer Hoyoung Lee is a bit more
streamlined and portable, but boils
down to the same simple
black/gray-on-white process. This
tube-shaped design alternate plays
on the aesthetic of a rolled piece of
paper – and fits inside a portfolio
tube just like a set of drawings or
blueprints would.You know how it becomes more and
more painful to write and stubs grow
ever smaller. Instead of worrying
away at (or about) the point or
trashing it prematurely, simply toss
the leftover nub into the printer or
splice it with another and move on.
The 2nd version of pencil printer
Biodiesel made with
sugar catalyst
Michikazu Hara of Tokyo University came up with
the production of diesel from vegetable oil. The
production of diesel from vegetable oil calls for an
efficient solid catalyst to make the process fully
ecologically friendly . He described the preparation
of such a catalyst from common ,inexpensive sugars
. This high performance-catalyst ,which consists of
stable sulphonated amorphous carbon , is reclyable
and its activity markedly exceeds that of other
solid acid catalysts tested for ‘biodiesel’
production.
Prof. Michikazu Hara
Plastic Cotton for
Mattresses and Bricks
Residents of Anandwan travel to nearby villages to collect plastic bags
and other re-usable trash. These are washed, sanitized and sorted.
Thereafter they are shredded to a cotton like material to form what is
known as ‘Plastic Cotton’ to fill into mattresses and pillows. The
shredded plastic is also mixed in cement, sand and mud to prepare
stabilized mud bricks. This method imparts adequate compressive
strength to bricks without firing, thus eliminating the use of fuel.
Such reinforced bricks are used to construct Nubian vaults to form
house roofs, thereby saving money greatly on the use of cement and
steel. These have also been deployed in the construction of biogas
plants.
Anandwan recycles medical waste and reduces the impact on the
environment. Saline bottles become Christmas trees, with little
ornaments hanging from them. Intricate works of art are created from
empty sachets. Elsewhere in the world these sachets only add to the
rubbish in the landfills. But at Anandwan they are used as raw
materials for art!
Women making mattresses out of plastic cotton
in the village of Anandwan
Halodu: Instrument for
weeding crops in
mountains
The slopes of mountains and sporadic land pattern of
‘Himachal Pradesh’ (a hilly state in India)
Make it difficult for farmers to employ tractors for sowing
or weeding on a large scale. Rajkumar, a resident of a
remote village(Dalchera) in Hamirpur district of Himachal
Pradesh was another victim of these natural impediments
forcing him to try different innovations against human
limitations against nature. Using a second hand wheel and
its fork, from the wreck of his bicycle, Rajkumar invented
a curiously ingenious tool for weeding his fields. The
manually operated tool for weeding, named ‘Halodu’, has
ushered in a revolution in lives of farmers in the hilly
region.
‘Halodu’ has established itself as a cost effective,
innovative and absolutely pollution free technology for
farmers in the hills
‘Halodu’ proved to be a very effective tool for kitchen
gardening in the hills. The tool has also come very
effectively to aid overcome difficulty for farmers in wake
of deteriorating practice of maintaining bullocks in the
hilly areas. The people living in those areas can’t afford
tractors. Therefore, this cheap instrument is very helpful
Halodu Weeder
How are Indian innovations
different from
international innovations?
People in India do not have that much funds to buy machines or to create
electronic goods for their use like in other developed countries like USA.
An Indian innovation is an idea that erupts from solving day-to-day problems.
[the term ‘jugaad’ is used for these things] Whereas in the western countries
may be an experimental or scientific recreation.
Indian innovations are mostly cost-effective or eco-friendly solutions as
compared to their western counterparts.
Indians have to deal with limited resources whereas the western countries do
not have to deal with that.
Generally Indian innovations are in the remote areas by the local people who
mostly try to recycle products for their daily use.
Methods involved in Indian innovations are crude and mostly involves making
the ‘Best Out of Waste’.
Indian innovations are mostly on a low scale whereas western innovations are
large scale.
Bibliography:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/at-scientific-
american/2013/06/27/science-in-action-winner-for-2013-elif-bilgin/
www.nature.com
http://www.yankodesign.com/2010/02/04/printing-with-a-pencil-stub/
http://dornob.com/get-the-lead-out-cartridge-free-erasable-pencil-
printer/#axzz39JPlWtac
http://www.anandwan.in/spectrum-of-work/eco-friendly-innovations.html
https://ec.europa.eu/research/events/eib/ic2014/speaker.cfm?id=10
http://www.ecoideaz.com/innovative-green-ideas/jugaad-innovations-indian-
farmers