 .:ZERO WASTE CONVENTION
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Inventor’s Week; August 15 to 21, 2008
Best Management Practice Technology and Eco Tours: August 22 to 28, 2008
Venue: HELP International Centre for Ecology Research and Training, Weyburn, Sask.
Contact HELP to register as a volunteer on a technology design team or to obtain more information
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Sign up to volunteer to lead or participate on an engineering design team now!
If you are an engineer, a carpenter, a plumber, an electrician, a
welder, a painter, an inventor, a serious handyperson, or someone who
can act as a serious assistant to one of the above, you qualify to
volunteer at the First Annual Zero Waste Convention Inventors Week from
August 15 to 21, 2008 at HELP International’s Centre for Ecology
Research and Training at the Queen Street City Farm in Weyburn. Email
now to discuss which technology team you wish to volunteer for.
Free food services and hot showers will be provided to officially registered volunteers.
Volunteers are welcome to park campers or pitch tents on site. Four
of HELP’s five African mud and thatch huts are available on first come
first serve for volunteers wishing to convert them into living quarters
for the week. You can bring cots to install in these if you wish.
Apply for Award Winning Internship in Kenya
Any technology team leader, handyperson or summer student, whose
technology prototype is considered by a review committee to be
function, useful and appropriate for the use and audience intended, can apply for a one month internship with HELP International 's Zero Waste Project in Kenya, Africa in February, 2009. (Fundraising contribution of $2,500 per person is required to assist in airfare).
Technologies for Development
Below
is a list of over twenty green technologies which will be further
developed during Inventor’s Week from August 15 through 22, 2008. One
of ten technology teams made up of a leading engineer or tradesman and
four volunteers will work on furthering the development of a technology
of their choice below.
1. Solar Dehydration Toilet for safe neutralizing of toilet wastes from lake cottages.
Current status at HELP’s CERT: toilet design and construction is 80% complete.
2. Plastic Moulding Devices for manufacture of bricks, posts and plank.
Current status at CERT: Design is 70% complete and 50% materials for prototype are acquired
3. Fibre Board Manufacture (Increasing the current 24 x 24 inch output to a 4 x 8 ft design)
Current
Status at CERT: HELP invented manufacturing unit for 24 x 24 inch
fiberboard is complete and operating in Kenya and Canada.
4. Building Methane Accumulator from toilet wastes to acquire fuel for the camp
Current Status at CERT: HELP has acquired the design. HELP staff have visited functioning models.
5. Adapt Air Compressor Technology to Compress Methane from collector tank to portable compressed gas cylinders
Current Status at CERT: Suggested design is conceptualized.
6. Upgrade Paper Mill
Current Status at CERT: Prototype has been manufactured by HELP Kenya designer for bicycle driven mill. Design
for modification of prototype is 80% complete requiring waterproof
bearings, installation of small electric motor (and upgrading a bicycle
driver version for application in Africa)
7. Construct first industrial scale Vermiculture unit
Current
Status at CERT: Two years of vermiculture multiplication and waste food
application testing is complete using indoor and outdoor covered vats. Plan for multi tonne below ground waste food unit processer is planned using geothermal heat for winter vermiculture survival. Expected to involve some concrete works.
8. Construct zero maintenance industrial scale composting area
Current Status at HELP: Design has been widely discussed between HELP and urban municipalities. Adaptation of rural manure composting design is contemplated.
9. Adapt porta-potties into hygienic toilet fed outdoor terrariums
Current Status at CERT: HELP
eco camp porta potties successfully modified in 2007 for liquids
diversion resulting in higher air hygiene and far less maintenance.
Asian style terrarium will be added to receive liquids diversion which
is currently using less-environment friendly post-hole dissipation
method.
10. Refine
the process for handling, milling, outdoor/indoor soil mixing,
packaging and marketing of waste Styrofoam and soil/Styrofoam potting
mixes
Current
Status at CERT: HELP has successfully modified a traditional farm
hammer mill to effectively mill waste Styrofoam. A sod farmer has
offered to purchase one tonne of the finished product.
11. Construct and Test Use of Urine Diversion/Solar dehydration toilet for resorts, camps and rural residences.
Current
Status at CERT: Design and construction (implemented over the past
three seasons) is 90% complete. Is based upon urine diversion Asian
toilets and the use of African solar stove technology. Has had additional design input from engineering partners.
12. Create jig for mass production of simple bio-degradable cardboard tree mulch pads.
Current
Status at CERT: Basic prototype has been manufactured and earlier
versions successfully field tested. 2008 field tests of current
prototype also required. No jig used so far in mulch pad production but
one is required for making production more efficient and standardized.
13. Design insulation R-value testing box to test various zero waste material R-value.
Including testing R-value of milled waste Styrofoam, cardboard brick etc
Current
Status at CERT: Testing box design using removable panels for filling
with alternative materials including materials of known R value for
comparative analysis is conceptualized. Use of simple timed ice cube
melting time for alternative insulations is expected to determine R
values without employing complex mathematics.
14. Create
Multi-ply cardboard brick and test fire resistance compared to
conventional insulation materials and compared to cardboard in non
brick form.
Current Status at CERT: Conceptualization only. Cardboard
mulch pad manufacture providing insight into cardboard brick making.
HELP is planning cabin constructions which will test alternative
insulations (including cardboard brick insulation).
15. Set Up tree planting experiment using a wide range of waste materials as mulch.
Current
Status at CERT: Used carpet, plywood, cardboard, plastic, grass/leaves
has been experimented with so far. Earlier field applications need to
be assessed and documented.
16. Create straight tree row installations without actually planting trees!
Current
Status at CERT: Accidental discovery in 2007 led to 43 cottonwood trees
spontaneously growing in a straight line where a fence line was
constructed with a fire guard (turf removal and mulch laid). HELP wishes to replicate this condition in places where tree lines are desired.
17. Create natural tree proliferation bird bath
Current Status at CERT: HELP attempted in 2005 to replicate a discovery of this application. Bird
bath under laid with membrane and crushed stone has proliferated trees
however more should be expected if bird bath was in more private area
and had constant water source i.e.: self fed water bowl with float.
18. Create a $500 electricity production/storage unit from existing farm technology
Current Status at CERT: Components and design from existing farm and automotive technology conceptualized.
19. Create
a filtration, water storage and pumping system for recycling brown
water from laundry washing machines for recycling for use in toilet
flushing.
Current Status at CERT: Components and Design Conceptualized. Micro Pump procured.
20. Direct tree seeding experiment
Current Status at CERT: Conceptualization only. Basic
seed bank of cotton wood, maple and elm tree seeds has been established
at HELP for this purpose. Wish is to create conditions in the wilds
such as creating a depression/moisture furrow using a simple rock tooth
or one-way plow thereby breaking the permanent cover and creating a
moisture trap where seeds can be direct planted/broadcast OR create
similar conditions under old growth trees for self-seeding to occur. An experiment to cultivate under old growth trees to promote natural tree replacement will also be carried out at CERT.
21. Natural Tree Seedling Proliferation in micro cracks surrounded by concrete mulch and shade
Current Status at CERT: Thousands of trees proliferation seen in ‘unplanned’ areas next to restaurant and on street curbs. HELP wishes to replicate these conditions to create thousands of tree seedlings without requiring a tree nursery to do so.
Program for Students
University
students work with HELP during late May and June to carry out zero
waste seminars through full-day in-services with four schools (Regina’s
Massey School, Elsie Mironuck School, Muscowpetung First Nations School, Raymore School. This will be followed by two
to three day live-in eco camps with each of the schools at CERT (HELP’s
Center for Ecology Research and Training) just outside of Weyburn. Students
will be trained in the basic concepts of design, manufacture and use of
thirty simple, low cost technologies (what is known as ‘appropriate
technology’). Students will also engage in providing
design ideas or contribute to actual implementation to any of the
nineteen technology development areas.
The
high school students from these school programs and from other program
promotions, who show the most promise will be offered five week
employment contract to work as understudies to the University interns with an R and D project.
From
August 15 to 21, 2008 both university and high school interns will
culminate their time with HELP by understudying professional engineers
participating in HELP’s first annual Zero Waste Convention. HELP’s
CERT (Center for Ecology Research and Training) is hosting volunteer
engineers from several sponsoring firms who will be working in tandem
with student interns to work on developing simple low cost technology
for waste recycling and silviculture for home and community based
industry. Each team will apply themselves to prototype
one of the twenty technologies mentioned above that HELP has been
working on over the past four years.
.:GREEN TECHNOLOGY PROMOTION WEEK
August 22-28, 2008
How You Can Participate During Green Technology Promotion Week August 22 – 28
Town
representatives from across the province plus the general public are
invited to attend during August 22 to 28 to participate in technology
tours at HELP’s Center for Ecology Research and Training (CERT) and/or
for daily Best Management Practice field tours to visit the HELP led
Souris River and Farm Protection Program; Living landfill cap program;
Effluent Irrigation Woodlot program, and Salinity Reversal Forestation
program. Tour Cost: $10 admission to CERT park; Additional $10 for a two to three hour BMP field tour.
Then
from August 22 to 29, students will be responsible for displaying to
the general public and to town partners coming from around the province
the technologies they have been working on.
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