Kids Made Eco Friendly Roof For Toilet With Plastic Bottles In Tamil Nadu

Students at a government school in Thiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu built an Eco Roof for their uncovered toilet using waste plastic bottles. The project was selected amongst the Top 20 stories at the ‘I CAN Awards 2015’ organised by Design for Change.

The students – Dhileepkumar T, Jahan B, Guruadityan M, Hariharan S, and Pathy J – under the mentorship of Punniyamurthy D, settled on using waste plastic bottles which might otherwise pollute the agricultural soil in the community. They conceptualised that they could cut off the top and bottom of the bottles, and then slice them longitudinally to get flattened shapes. One could mount these onto a wooden frame as roofing tiles.

To garner support towards this initiative, the students made prototypes of the roofing module, and showed them in meetings with the President of the Panchayat Union and parents, who joyfully declared, “No dust, no worries!” On encountering financial problems, the alumni, parents, and PTA helped out. The students gathered bottles from marriage halls, took help from the parents in constructing the wooden frame, and completed the project within 7-15 days.

Nevertheless, the children’s initiative to think of an unconventional solution to the problem of roofing is indeed striking. Seeing children have such a sustainable outlook towards problem-solving, one looks forward to a bright future indeed!