Ruhani Verma, an Amritsar local, has constructed what she claims is India’s first carbon-negative public toilet, made entirely of repurposed or recyclable materials. On Saturday, MP Gurjeet Aujla and airport director V K Seth opened ‘Toilet 01,’ dubbed Swachh-Alyaa, at the Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport in Amritsar.
“The basic principle of our initiative is sustainability,” stated a Class 12 student at Jayshree Periwal International School in Jaipur. I planned to construct India’s first structure out of environmentally friendly bricks. Around 30% of the brick used in the construction of the toilet is made of single-use plastic, while the remaining 70% is made of garbage and silica dust.”
“Waste generation, particularly single-use plastic littering throughout our countryside, is a global phenomenon, not just in India.” This issue has only become worse with each passing year. “This toilet will be able to address this issue,” Verma stated.
She stated that no natural materials such as soil, silica, or water were employed in the production of the Silica Plastic Blocks (SPB). They are entirely constructed of garbage. All of the materials utilised in the project are recyclable, and no cement mortar was used in the construction process. According to Verma, an SPB brick is three times stronger than a traditional red clay brick. The complete toilet building was designed in a modular fashion.
“If these (four lakh) plastic bags were to be lined up, they would cover a distance of 150 kilometres.” “As this construction utilises zero water or cement to build a carbon-negative building, the idea of interlocking bricks, like Lego blocks, was employed to connect them together,” said Verma, who hopes to study sustainable design and come up with more such models to assist the environment.
“Amritsar airport didn’t have any restrooms in the parking lot, so I thought it would be the greatest location for this sustainable toilet project.” My school’s director, Ayush Periwal, and Shridhar Rao, co-founder of SPB technology, helped me make it happen. “I was also inspired by airport director V K Seth-ji to design this toilet,” she claimed.
