‘Create while you Segregate’ | Sustainable Dustbin that Generates Electricity

Brief

Explore the relationship between Kere (Water Tank/ Lakes) and the communities surrounding them. Understand the changing nature of this relationship owing to rapid urbanization and the impact of this in disturbing the inherent harmonious ecological balance that existed between the lake, the people, the flora and fauna.

Task

Create an activity (an interactive installation, a game, etc.) for the community that helps them develop an appreciation/insight for their surroundings.

Aim

To make a multi-purpose working dustbin that serves the dual purpose of waste collection and segregation, at the same time is attached to a turbine that is driven from the usage of the dustbin itself.

The product/installation aims to fulfill the need for dustbins in the park area attached to the lake and at the same time latently generate awareness around the issue of waste management in the area by the usage of the product itself.

Background and Research

During our two visits to the lake and the subsequent interactions with the communities, I realized there was a definite concern surrounding the cleanliness of the lake and waste management in the surrounding areas. To top this off, there were no dustbins in the park adjoining the lake, forcing the people to litter in the park and in the patch of lake shore touching the park.

This sort of pushed me to come up with some facilities in the park for waste collection (and secondarily, also attempt it’s segregation as well). In this I saw potential to explore from the basics the designs of all dustbins and come up with a design that serves the multi purpose of collection AND segregation, all the while following the tasks, rules, set of capabilities, etc
mentioned in our brief.

At the same time, I wanted to employ our learning from MGIRED (Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Rural Energy and development) and the huge amount of research they’ve done around renewable sources of energy. So the aim was to somehow design a mechanism that employs the usage of the dustbin itself as a driving force for a turbine, generating electricity.

The project as a whole, I felt, satisfied the intent in our brief. It will be interactive in the respect that it will be none other than the people who are using it, and the same time it will make people aware of the urgency of the situation and the dire need of the changes they need to make.

Design & Development

The dustbin will be cylindrical with its flat surface perpendicular to the ground. It will have to main components :

A static open cylinder (only curved surface, top and bottom flat faces missing), with a stand to elevate it to a reasonable height.

And a rotatable cylinder with three partitions inside and just the flat top and bottom faces(curved surface absent) acting as the storage unit for the waste.

The dustbin will have one open slot (in the static cylindrical frame) on the top for throwing trash in. The person will have to use the handles on the rotatable storage unit (which will have appropriate visuals on it to describe which slot belongs to which category) to bring the correct partition on top, and throw their trash in appropriate partitions. This storage unit will rotate on an axle which will further be connected to a turbine, generating electricity every time the dustbin is used.