Indian origin Australian scientist Veena Sahejwalla made ceramic tiles, wood and building materials by recycling old clothes

 

Australian professor and scientist of Indian origin Veena Sahajwalla, who is currently known as 'Australia's Waste Queen', 'A whirlwind of ideas and energy', 'Recycling Superstar’ or 'A magnetic personality on a mission' by recycling old clothes. She brought a bold and innovative idea to create new products by which the old fabric can be recycled through chemical and can be converted into building material and kitchen tiles.

Not only this, former IITian Veena has discovered an innovative idea from which wood, stone and ceramic tiles can also be prepared. Simultaneously, cloth can also be used to fill the empty land.

This process of recycling old clothes is completely eco-friendly: Veena

According to Veena- "There are many chemicals in clothes that start reacting as soon as they come in contact with air, water and sunlight, during this period a lot of toxic chemical and Greenhouse gases are also released, which is extremely fatal for the health of all living organisms. Do you know that 10% of the carbon in the world is emitted from clothing waste, which is also very bad for the environment, converting these clothes into new products by the recycling process is a new way of protecting the environment from pollution."

How Veena's Innovative Research Will Make Products From used Clothing

To accomplish their objective, Veena and her team first collected a large amount of old clothes to make the building material. First they removed the chain, button, buckle from the clothes. Than, cotton, polyester and nylon fabrics are separated. After that, with the help of machine, those clothes were cut into small pieces. The fabric is then converted into different fiber component sticks with the help of chemical. It is then put into machines and converted into a solid panel at an appropriate temperature. Veena said that after the initial research, when we did one test after another, these solid panels were made strong, water resistant and fire resistant. The specialty of this solid fiber made from cloth is that it cannot be burnt at a reasonable temperature.

At the 10th GRIHA Summit, Veena presented products made of old clothes

Veena Sahajwalla, a resident of Mumbai, has studied B.Tech from Metallurgical and Material Engineering - MME from IIT Kanpur in the year 1986. After that, she completed her Master's degree from the University of British Columbia and her PhD on Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Currently, Veena is a professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and has been researching the correct use of old clothing for many years. In the year 2018, he got success in this purpose. In the 10th GRIHA Summit held in Delhi last year from 11 to 13 December, Veena surprised everyone by presenting products related to building materials with ceramic plates, stone, wood, prepared from old clothes.

Veena Sahajwalla is an internationally renowned environmentalist

Veena has done a lot of work in the field of environmental protection. In the same series, he has discovered this unique way of preparing building materials from them to remove the pollution caused when old clothes are thrown away.

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Prof. Veena Sahajwalla has also been selected as Woman of the Year

Sahajwalla's vision and methodology towards her research is quite straightforward and because of that Australia's Harper's Bazaar magazine has selected Sahajwalla as the Woman of the Year in 2018 by putting Sahajwala on its cover page. Veena told that when I was younger I used to see old clothes scattered in the streets in Mumbai. Some people used to distribute old clothes among the poor as well. I always wondered if clothes can be recycled and made into something. I wanted to do engineering since childhood and today I am successful in my objective.

Sahajwalla’s recent researches on different waste materials other than old clothes

As an environmentalist after three years of lab work she joined Australia’s biggest manufacturer named ‘OneSteel’. Now, she start experimenting with materials such as  polythen, old car tyres, and discarded plastics. In 2018, she launched the world’s first E-Waste microfactory and in 2019 she launched her plastic microfactory, Presently, Sahajwalla and her team are now opening new doors of manufacturing. She says  “We cannot throw away our old items just because we’ve become tired of them and we want new things. The planet cannot sustain that style of living. It is our individual responsibility for a collective and better future for the planet.”