Toilets with plastic bottles? IIT-Madras students show the way. Times of India, January 22, 2017.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The method involves using discarded PET bottles filled with savudu sand (aquifer sand).
- The students built a bench using PET bottles on the IIT-M campus last month.
- SYNK, the collective behind the project, intends using it to build toilets in rural areas.
CHENNAI: A group of 13 IIT-Madras students has designed and tested a construction model using PolyEthylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles for bricks and hopes it will revolutionise future government-sponsored sanitation programmes.
SYNK, the collective behind the project, intends using it to build toilets in rural areas. It can help reduce plastic waste, said manager Arpan Paul.
The method involves using discarded PET bottles filled with savudu sand (aquifer sand). “This is not construction grade sand. The type we used for our experiment is what you would find at a landfill,” said W Keerthana, a students. A little water poured into the PET bottle is drained and then filled with sand to make it strong like a brick.
As a test, the students built a bench using PET bottles on the IIT-M campus last month. “We sourced 3500 plastic bottles from nearly 10 restaurants in Velachery and Adyar,” said Paul, adding that the method is cost effective and quick. “It cost us around Rs 4,000 to procure the sand.”
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