Sustainable Systems

Faculty- Sahiba Madan

What are Sustainable Systems

Week 1

9.01.2020

Discussion about what is sustainable. Sustainable is anything which goes on for longer, does not use up our resources and has a balanced way of life.

A sustainable system should have, less land, sound, water, air pollution. There should be equality in opportunities for men and women, literacy, animal protection, no racism etc.

Sustainable and Non sustainable things around us

Week 2

16.01.2020

In this class we were asked to present things that are sustainable around us. It was a very interesting things as i got to know very simple hacks that people do in households to have a more sustainable life.

The few sustainable things that i found in my surroundings were-

Reusable grocery bags

jute or khadi bags that can be reused everytime we go shopping. It removes the waste generated from polythene bags which are harmful for the enviroment.

Bartan wali

There are these bartan wali bais that go house to house and sell utensils in exchange of clothes. So this process helps in reusing clothes that no longer come in use to us. These ladies take a bulk of clothes in exchange of little utensils, so i feel its a fair trade at the same time helping in taking a step towards sustainability.

E-waste management

There is a lot of ewaste that is generated in india today. Most of the electronics that come to india are old products that have already been obselete or old in 1st world countries. It comes under the top 5 countries that generate the e waste the most. Hence there have been different companies that are coming up with ideas to improve this situation. they are helping in e waste management.

Croma has come with this initiative that if you give them your e waste, they would plant a tree for it. They have tied up with “justdispose” which collects e waste from your doorstep. They send it to the government base facility to carefully dispose and recycle it as ewaste contains a lot of toxicmaterials like lead, mercury.

Biodegradable trash bag

Government is taking iniative for biodegradable trashbags that also help in waste segregation. These trash bags can decompose within 6 months.

Cycling

Cycling is a very healthy form of living as well has it doesnt emit any gases like other vehicles. It doesnt require any non perennial source of energy.

The unsustainable things that our there is our enviroment are :-

Non biodegradable sanitary pads

In todays world sanitary pads are made of non biodegradable materials which create a lot of land pollution. Hence its a very unsustainable way of living as it causes a lot of waste. Hence there are companies that have come up with reusable things for menstruation. like the menstruation cup, and resusable sanitary pads.

2. Unsustainable fashion

I checked my cupboard and all i found was clothes from brands like forever 21, h&m, zara which all fall under the category of brands that sell unsustainable clothing. In todays world, fashion moves very fast, hence these brands keep producing new clothes and people keep buying them. There is a lot of unnatural cloth used in there clothings and its not a sustainable life.

Hence to face this problem, many brands have come up with sustainable clothing. Amrapali boutique, Doodlage and many more have come up with a sustainable fashion brand which uses all natural products.

3. Use and throw pens

Use and throw pens is a very unsustainable way of living. Its shelf life is probably for 2-3 weeks. It cant be used again nor can we change the refill. its made of plastic and causes of land pollution. Instead we should use pens whose refills can be changed and their body is made of something which is biodegradable i.e wood.

4. automated taps

automated taps are a very unsustainable way of living as it wastes a lot of water even after we are done washing our hands

Mind maps

week 3

23.01.2020

Waste management around us

week 4

30.01.2020

We learnt that sustainable systems encompasses it’s stake holders which are mostly humans.

In this class we had to bring a presentation as group for the topics given to us. This is how it turned out-

waste management 1 Download

waste-management 2(individual)Download

Surveys

week 5

6.02.2020

A better way of presenting our research we should always conduct surveys. We learnt that in surveys help us to realise the actual numbers and the stakeholders involved.

Surveys could be presented in pie charts, histograms etc.

We had to cover three areas in our surveys – residential, commercial and mixed.

Review of our group surveys

week 6

13.02.2020

We conducted our surveys through google forms initially, but that got rejected. We were personally asked to go person to person.

We made a list of our questions and printed them out. I went downstairs to these small shops to fill out these survey forms.

The things I noticed were –

1. Many were apprehensive to fill the forms as they did not want to be disturbed or could not understand what’s written

2. The people I interviewed were small shop owners who lived in the chawl across the street.

3. Municipality had put 2 dustbins wet and dry waste and the chawl followed it

4. Residents of high rise like Crescent bay did not follow it.

Macro level studies

week 7

20.02.2020

In this we looked at two case studies. One at vijay nagar in mumbai and one in chembur housing society. Both were very related to our topic as these housing societies have reduced their waste to almost a negligible amount.

I personally wanted to do a survey of my own complex where i live in which is Crescent Bay in parel. It has 5 towers, 45-55 floors each and have approximately 5000 residents staying there currently. There is also construction taking place of another building in that complex. After asking around my neighbors, found out that we do not practice waste segregation and few families who do have stopped doing so as ultimately the corporation takes their waste bins in a combined form. Then there are families who are simply lazy to shift over to this practice and while some are not educated enough about this topic. After talking to the cleanliness staff of the building i calculated that approximately 6490 tonnes of waste is generated by this entire complex which includes residential waste as well as construction waste. This is approximately 0.59% of the total waste generated by Mumbai on a daily basis.

Presentation

week 8

27.02.2020

This is the final presentation –

final-ppt Download

Upcycle and recycle

week 9

5.03.2020

We were asked to make a product out of materials and upcycle it to make a new product.

The product that we got were stone, linen, and cement. We were asked to make two products and choose one common element, we went for stone.

The properties of the materials which we got were stone for its heating and cooling properties, cement for it Rigidity and molding property and linen for it porous quality.

These are the iterations we made-

A chair with a sturdy backrest for people with backbone problems. There will be stones placed on the spine for acupressure purposes

Prototypes

week 10

12.03.2020

We tried to make the cement based backrest plate but it was a fail-

This is the final filter process using three layers of linen cloth with stones placed inside them. The porous nature of linen helps the water to be penerate through, leaving the bigger particles behind. The stone which has cooling property will cool down the water. –

Water after filteration -not completely pure but if filtered again it will become pure

Placing different layers over the container

Layer 2- stones stitched inside the cloth using a linen thread

Interactive module for Cleanliness and waste management

week 11

19.03.2020

Sustainable Systems is a system which has longevity, is Eco-friendly, and has a balanced way to living life by not exhausting resources. It follows 4 processes, recycling- Using old objects to make a new object, Reusing- using the same object for a different purpose, Reducing -lessening the usage of an object and upcycling-Improving the quality of the object to reuse it. To make our existing systems sustainable, firstly everyone should be made aware of sustainable practices and we could all start with reducing waste and practising waste segregation. Secondly, we can start reusing items by upcycling them such as old fabric to create- bags, sweepers, pouches etc. And lastly, make new designs which are bio-degradable and uses the least resources. From the projects that we have executed, we can take inspiration from complexes like ‘Vijay Nagar’ in Mumbai for simple practices in waste segregation. The linen-stone water filter is not applicable in urban cities as water filters and fridges to cool the water are present in every home, but this can be used in remote places to filter muddy water. Lastly, the game we made, can be played in every household.

Module Research

week 12

module-reseacrh-1 Download

Module prototype

Week 13

My team’s topic was ‘Cleanliness and waste management practices’. We felt that sustainable waste practices should start at home. I utilized the surveys that I had performed in my previous project of ‘Waste Management’ where I had concluded that most of the middle to higher class societies do not perform waste segregation and are not aware of what goes items goes into wet waste and what goes into dry waste. Since most women of Indian households are in charge of the kitchen (where the maximum amount of waste is collected) we decided to make them our primary target audience. Hence we made the game in Hindi as well for better understanding. Our secondary target audience is the youth, kids and teenagers since that’s the age group which mostly plays board games.

This is a presentation on the thought process of our module-

module-ppt-pdf Download

Module Mock up

week 14

Initially, we decided to make a board game that was fun as well as educative on the topic of waste management. As we could not execute the final physical prototype, we decided to redesign it into an E-Board game. It’s in a PDF format and can be forwarded to anyone. Those families with printers at home can print it, cut out the pieces, construct it and play it. This also ensures that excess waste for making the proper boxes and pieces are also cut down. Instead of giving actual boxes for waste bins, we have made 2D cut-out sheets and a visual instruction manual for the explanation. In this way, we are also teaching people how to make eco-friendly boxes out of paper which they can build in future for substituting plastic bins. To perform this module I’ve played it with my friends on the online platform Zoom. I’ve also emailed this e-board game to families so that they can make it and play it amongst themselves.

This is the final design of our board game-

board-game-des-in Download

Final Presentation

Week 15

23.04.2020

This is the final ppt of all our combines efforts-

final-ppt-1 Download

This is the video link to my conducted module with my friends on zoom. I could not play it at home as i do not have a printer hence i modified the game by simply messaging the icons to the players. –

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TIT-S3IgdUfRnGeUT3EbNSQA9Q7bN325

After this module i feel the only thing we could have changed is to have an explanatory note as to what is dry, wet, and electronic waste. After conducting this i felt that many teenagers like us still dont know the difference between dry and wet waste. They are not practicing the same at home and hopefully through this game they have the motive to do so for a better sustainable way of living.