Waste World- EcoDesign Festival (Szemét Világ- Öko Design Festival) is organized between 3 September 2009 and 3 March 2010 in VAM Design Center in Budapest, Hungary. The ultimate purpose of the festival is to draw attention to the growing problem of waste. During these month series of programs are organized to seek and offer solution for the reuse and recycling of waste.
Programs are organized in two different lines: on one hand, it deals with the reuse and recycling of waste and on the other hand, with the prevention of waste formation. Organizers’ intention is to spread the idea of environmentally conscious lifestyle, recycling, the use of organic materials, and to promote the aspects of ecocentric thinking by so called waste design.
The participants of the festivals are Hungarian and foreign artists from a wide range of fields: fine art, handicraft, but also modern dance and music. The patron of the festival is Imre Szabó, the Hungarian Minister of Environment and Water.
I would like to invite you for a lecture today. The lecturer will be Peter Olajos who is specialized for European enviromental engineer and he was member of the IMCO, then the BUDG and the 'ad hoc' committee for climate changing. For more information about him in Hungarian:
His lecture will be about the green economy and green society and the language is Hungarian.
When:on the 6th October from 8 pm.
Where: in Rajk László College for Advanced Studies (6. Horánszky street 1085. Budapest)
I have found a Hungarian page called www.hulladekboltermek.hu, it is about how to redesign waste and there is a game where you, as a girl :), can press plactic bottels and you can even be the top of the game (:
Have fun with it! (:
The way of playing: press the "down" button first to start pressing of the bottle and press again if you think it is ready, then press the space bottom to drop it into the trash can. To start playing, just click on the picture below and then on the "jatszom" button!
All over the world plastic bottles are produced, consumed, and trashed each and every day. Recycling is one solution for the problem, but not the only one! You can also reuse plastic bottles. You don’t even need extra money or resources for that. All you have to use is your creativity to turn plastic bottles into great objects. Here are some ideas as inspiration for your own items:
A bird feeder in your window or backyard. Easy to bulid, cheap and attracts all kind of colorful wildlife.
And a piece of true modern art
And if it is still not enough, here are some really crazy ideas
Plastic waste is a menace and has become a serious problem, especially in urban areas, in terms of its misuse, its dumping in the dustbins. But how to tackle the problem? Not only environmentalists, but also scientists realized that recycling is the best alternative to get rid of waste and convert them into something useful for our world today.
However, plastic has posed some problems, being one of the materials that is indeed hard to recycle, the laboratory studies conducted in India in utilization of waste plastic bags in bituminous concrete mixes seems to solve these difficulties.
And how it works? Here you find a detailed introduction about the project:
Reuse of plastics waste in Road Construction
Polymer blended Bitumen shows higher Softening point, lower penetration point, and better ductility. Polymer coated aggregate blended with Bitumen shows higher Marshall value and better stripping value showing that the mix is more suited for road laying.
Process of Road laying using polymer- aggregate – Bitumen mix
The plastic waste (bags, cups, Thermocole) made out of PE, PP, & PS are separated, cleaned if needed and shredded to small pieces (passing through 4.35mm sieve) The aggregate (granite) is heated to 170oC in the Mini hot Mix Plant and the shredded plastic waste is added, it gets softened and coated over the aggregate. Immediately the hot Bitumen (160oC) is added and mixed well. As the polymer and the bitumen are is the molten state (liquid state) they get mixed and the blend is formed at surface of the aggregate. The mixture is transferred to the road and the road is laid. This technique is extended to Central Mixing Plant too.
Salient features of the polymer-waste-bitumen mix Road:
Road strength is twice stronger than normal roads;
Resistance towards water stagnation i.e. no potholes are formed;
Less bleeding during summer;
Burning of plastics waste could be avoided
It doesn’t involve any extra machinery;
It doesn’t increase cost of road construction; and
It helps to reduce the consumption of bituminous mix vis-à-vis reduce cost
It is observed that addition of plastics waste upto 10-15% by weight of bitumen resulted into higher values of softening point and lower values of penetration, which are appreciable improvements in the properties of the binder. This has resulted and withstood higher traffic load and high temperature variation. Several experimental stretches have been laid in more than 15 locations in Tamilnadu using both Mini hot-mix and Central mixing plants.
Economics of Road Construction:
There are different types of bitumen roads. They are, Dense Bituminous Macadam, Bituminous Macadam. These roads differ in 3-ways i.e. 1. Composition of the aggregate; 2. Type of bitumen used; and 3. Thickness of layer. Bitumen is an useful binder for road construction. Different grades of bitumen like 30/40, 60/70, and 80/100 are available on the basis of their penetration values and these grades can be used as IRC Specifications. Waste plastics (10% in place of bitumen) can be used for these different types of bitumen roads. The technology of road laying is very much the same as prescribed by the Indian Roads Congress (Section 500, IV revision) Specifications. A detailed description of the material required for laying of Semi Dense Bituminous Concrete (SDBC) 25 mm road (on existing road) is described below: -
Materials:
For 1000Mx3.75M (25mm) Road 11.250 tons (60/70 grade) bitumen needed
Bitumen replaced (saved) by 10/ % Plastics: 1.125 tons
Actual Bitumen Required: 10.125 tons
Aggregate (11.2mm) 70.875 Cu.M
Aggregate (6.7mm) 43.125 Cu.M
Aggregate Dust: 23.625 Cu.M
Cost:
The total cost including material as mentioned above, labour charge etc. (At Madurai) is approx. 5.00 lakh, however, the cost may be different from place to place and have to be calculated accordingly. The cost break-up is given below :
Collection of littered plastics Rs. 0.50 lakh
Cost of shredder and other equipment : Rs. 0.50 lakh
Laying of road with material, labour etc.:Rs. 4.00 lakh
A comprehensive policy to address the plastic waste problem in the European Union, as well as in Hungary has been long overdue. Now it is hightime for all stakeholders of the private and public sector to harness their resources and capability and get involved in the programmes designed to tackle the problem of plastic waste. However, there are numerous attempts by environmentalists to control the production and use of plastics, they often bump into barriers that prevent communities, businesses, and people from employing environmetally sensitive methods for treating plastic waste.
Our main goal is to create awereness about the necessity of a comprehensive environmental policy in the field of waste production and recyclement and to broaden the acceptance and practice of alternative methodes in this field. The initiative of our project is to mediate between the private sector- companies responsible for the plastic waste- and the scientific sector who offers alternative, enviromental solution for reducing this waste. To meet these goals we create this platform which helps not only to meet scientists, businessmen, and governmental regulators but also negotiate between them in order to find best matches between problems and methods of dealing with the problem of plastic waste.
Why it is worthwhile?
Plastic bags are produced from polymers derived from petroleum. The amount of petroleum used to make a plastic bag would drive a car about 11 metres. (source - CUA)
Five 2-liter recycled PET bottles produce enough fiberfill to make a ski jacket. –Environmental Protection Agency, 2002
On this site there are some more facts about plastic:
A bird feeder in your window or backyard. Easy to bulid, cheap and attracts all kind of colorful wildlife.
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