New Delhi: We, as humans, have always been on the receiving end in the exchange between nature and us. We take up all the natural resources for our needs without understanding our basic responsibility of saving nature and giving it back. It doesn’t take a lot and there are people who aren’t much talked about but are working towards giving back to mother nature by producing environment friendly products. Let us take a look at these unsung heroes:
Professor Satish Kumar
On one hand, plastic is choking our land, water and even air, if burned, because of its non biodegradable property and on other hand, high cost of fuel is making people suffer. But, what if problems can be turned into a solution?
Meet mechanical engineer Professor Satish Kumar from Hyderabad, who is fighting like a hero against this issue and is converting plastic into petroleum and the process does not produce any wastage or harm to nature.
About 50 tons of non biodegradable plastic has been converted into petrol. This amazing product is sold to small and some medium enterprises just at Rs 40 per litre which is easily affordable in comparison to markets. He claims to use 500 kg of plastic and receive a minimum 300 litres of petrol in one go.
Presently, it has not been tested in vehicles but preferred by companies for running their machines. He processes plastic into fuel with three steps known as plastic pyrolysis.
Zuzana Gombosova and C Suseelan Susmith
Leather bags, jackets and shoes are the most common products in the market and in the fashion industry. You must be aware of the fact that it is produced from peeling the skin of animals. Not only this, chemicals are also used while producing leather which causes soil, air and water pollution.
Still you can enjoy the leather fashion trends happily without hurting animals and causing pollution. Malai is a startup that is producing vegan leather called 'malai' from coconut water and banana fibre. It is founded by Zuzana Gombosova, material researcher from Slovakia and CS Susmith, product designer from Kerala.
Bacterial cellulose extract from coconut water and fibre from the stem of a banana are used to produce vegan leather which is water resistant and later on it can easily decompose in 150 days. Not only this, they prefer to use natural dyes, natural gums and starches.
Spriha Chokhani
The cost of furniture is tearing roofs nowadays and thus good quality furniture has become not so affordable for the public. Also, huge amount of trees are cut for the production of furniture which is a big challenge as it affects nature.
The solution for this problem is given by Spriha Chokhani, a designer from Jaipur who started Pulp Factory in 2017. They use and recycle waste papers for producing furniture. Paper furniture which is totally handmade, is produced from papier mache and other products from paper textiles like handbags.
Pulp factory designs furniture in almost 25 days from transforming newspapers into their nature friendly products. Furniture is durable and waterproof which can weigh upto 100 kg. The founder had been experimenting with papers to produce furniture ever since she was a student.
Tran Minh Tien
Whenever we go out to get something to drink, we use plastic straws without giving much thought to how it can affect our earth. Once they are accumulated in huge amounts, they cause water and land pollution. It leads to harm and danger to aquatic life.
To ease up this problem, a man from Vietnam, Tran Minh Tien has initiated environmentally safe alternatives to plastic straws. He produces straws made from lepironia, a type of wild grass found in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.
The amazing thing is that straws have a clean inner surface and do not contain any preservatives or chemicals. They largely appear in two varieties: green grass straws and dried grass straws. Green straws can be stored in the refrigerator and used upto 14 days whereas dry straws can be in use up to 6 months.
Let's contribute and support people like them to make our earth more green and flourish its beauty.
