Motivation

Life beyond impact story - Oddamavadi bridge

When I was a child, one day at night time I returned from Colombo to my hometown with my parents. Approximately, we crossed the bridge (It's situated near our hometown) I smell a kind of stench that blew up.

Every time I go out of my hometown I smell the same stench, so I think it’s just a sign we have reached our hometown. So I explored what caused the stench to come to this site, which was a big problem in our hometown.

After I got some information from the local council, I dumped lots of garbage under the bridge so the reason for the sketch is the sting of unwanted Garbage.

I want to change the problem in my community. So I thought of making biogas from that garbage.

Affordable and clean energy

The world’s wastes – their temperature, chemistry, currents and life – drive global systems that make the Earth habitable. How we manage this vital resource is essential for life on earth, and to counterbalance the effects of climate change.

DreamSpace Academy has also adopted the sustainable development goal 7 “Affordable and clean energy” to conserve and sustainably use Organic and Agriculture wastes.

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Problem

A primary driver of conflict in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka is the failure of the city's infrastructure to support its rapidly growing population. The most visible (and odiferous) result of this inadequacy is the spectacular buildup of garbage in public places. Ad hoc waste disposal creates immediate conflicts between neighbours as well as between citizens and the city over dumping rights and collection responsibility. It also has more severe consequences. People commonly burn garbage piles to remove them, contributing to the city's exceptionally poor air quality and compromising public health.

Solution

Biodigester

Biogas reactor (or digester) technology can help negate the conditions that cause violence by eliminating waste and producing combustible gas. A digester – essentially an airtight tank with an inlet, an outlet and a gas valve – provides an environment for naturally occurring microbes to break down organic material into methane-rich “biogas” suitable for cooking, lighting and electricity generation.

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Maker

Faahim Ismail is a young innovator from Sri Lanka, who is in the pursuit of accessing a multidisciplinary scientific infrastructure that provides support for research, innovation and training, in the clean energy-related sectors, where he can amplify his knowledge in biogas, clean energy ecosystems and watersheds biogeochemistry, to keep an eye on our precious clean energy Ecosystems.

To reinforce his innovative thinking, he joined a community innovation centre called DreamSpace Academy in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka to learn waste management and he have been gaining the necessary maker skills to develop & produce electronics, mechanics and software.

During his study, he met and interviewed many people about the impact of waste on their lives, from garbage pickers to scrap dealers to municipal officials. He made contacts with the Pradeshiya sabha, an interdepartmental governmental agency; the Green Clean Movement and Roots to Fruits (HR2F), two NGOs; and the former mayor of Batticaloa. His status as a location will draw attention to this project, which is an asset since the project's ultimate goal is publicity for biogas technology. He is going to use these advantages to demonstrate the capacity of biogas technology to radically improve life in cities. He will start by helping a community install a biogas digester. The community will be selected based on its capacity to get optimal outcomes from the technology. Outcomes will be measured by the number of people the community serves with the digester and how effectively that service meets their needs. He will serve the community as a facilitator by connecting it with experts in the field of biogas, contractors who can make a lasting installation, and members of the media who can spread the news of benefits. The three key assets that suit me for this work are drive, time, and funding.

He saw the need for a system to resolve this problem, clean energy ecosystems around Sri Lanka. Therefore he have taken the challenge to build an affordable Biodigester, with the help of the existing open-source biodigester.

This innovation collects SDG Badges of