All of our projects rely on partnerships, and few are more essential than those we make with local universities that support our communities with research and development. The model is always the same: we look for a university that has an engineering, industrial or...
Over one year ago we wrote a post, Proof of Concept (https://www.wasteforlife.org/2017/09/28/proof-of-concept/), detailing the replacement of an asbestos toilet block roof with our prototype composite roof made from waste HDPE plastic reinforced with rice husks and...
On 23rd August, after months of planning, designing, testing, and coordinating – not to mention years of prior materials research – Paul Burnham joined our team members, Ashok Thayalan and Reddy Pramathanath in Jaffna to help replace an asbestos toilet...
Paul Burnham (http://www.paulburnham.com.au/) arrived in Colombo yesterday and heads up to Jaffna tomorrow to work with Ashok and Reddy on our asbestos-replacement roof project. Chern NG, our in-house Perth architect, designed the corrugated roof that Ashok and Reddy...
During our first visit to Sri Lanka in Spring 2015, we spent most of our time in and out of manufacturing facilities, traveling back and forth between our partner university campuses in Colombo and Jaffna, and in meetings to consolidate relationships with and between...
This is the number of households in Morón, the Buenos Aires suburb, from which members of cooperativa Nueva Mente collect the weekly rubbish that they then separate, sort, and sell to recycling middlemen. Until about 1 month ago this figure described a daily routine,...
While the Nueva Mente/Contenido Prensado group in Buenos Aires have been investigating new markets and designs for their trashbins – including domestic and industrial indoor models – Sarah Seitz, at Queens University, has been experimenting with building...
Last night we attended the opening of an exhibit at an art gallery here in San Telmo, just a few blocks from our apartment. The artist was named Adriana Gatti, and she had created a dress made of rubber from tires. Most definitely cool. Then she had taken photos of...
Today was an exhilarating yet exhausting day of rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty. We had to test out the manufacturing process by which our premier product was made: the wallet (or billetera, pronounced beesh-eh-TERR-ah in Argentine Spanish) that...
Back to the University of Buenos Aires yesterday for a follow-up visit with some second year students who designed and built products from chopped-up Danone yogurt containers. It was fun to chat with the students and see the look of pride on their faces as they...
