Veena Sahajwalla on turning waste into new materials

As the climate emergency escalates, it is clear that the solutions we need are those that can be applied at scale. The materials scientist Veena Sahajwalla is at the forefront as she is already designing and delivering such solutions. In this episode, Veena tells Design Emergency’s cofounder, Paola Antonelli, how she is recycling huge quantities of abandoned tyres, clothing and other waste into new materials.

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Born in India, where she was the only woman on her university engineering course, Veena then studied in Canada and the US, and is now based in Australia, where she is Professor of Materials Science at the University of New South Wales and founding director of its SMART Centre for Materials Research and Technology. Dubbed “the rubbish cop” by her daughter for her obsession with reusing and recycling waste at home, her work is devoted to developing new ways of transforming waste into new raw materials to decarbonise industrial production.

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Veena explains to Paola how she has invented a polymer injection technology, Green Steel, which has already recycled millions rubber tyres to replace coal in steel production. She also describes how she and her colleagues have developed a process of recycling clothes and glass into Green Ceramics for use in construction and interiors, and a new type of local micro-recycling hubs. All of which, Veena sees as being important steps towards a zero-waste circular economy.

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Thank you for listening. You will find images of projects described by Veena on our IG grid @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and the others on Apple, Amazon, Spotify and other podcast platforms. Please join us for future interviews with other global design leaders who are forging positive change.

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Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.