Aiming to reduce befoulment and flesh out his land ’s circumscribed trapping options , a South African inventor has createdNubrix , a brick made of recycled report , France 24 ’s The Observersreports .
Elijah Djan , 21 , is an industrial engineering student at the University of Pretoria . His forward-looking expression material has been days in the fashioning : As a kid , Djan witnessed his father , a lecturer , burning old textbooks , and was inspired to take legal action . “ I knew that it was speculative for the environment , but my pa pronounce he would n’t stop doing it unless I had a better idea for how to utilize the theme , ” Djan enounce .
Djan watched a infotainment on South Africa ’s small - income living accommodations shortfall ( as of 2011 , virtually 2 million of the body politic ’s home lived in shacks and cozy habitation ) , and a business design was bear . A epitome for his brick scored Djan , then 11 years old , a interior science trophy ; later , he tested the intention and even progress a still - standing paries from the bricks in his own backyard .
To turn Nubrix into a viable commercial Cartesian product , Djan says he needs a regulatory board ’s official certification of approval . For this to happen , the bricks need to be essay for flack ohmic resistance , water supply penetration , thermal capability , durability , and acoustics . Djan now has both the money and the opportunity to see if his Cartesian product can meet requirements : In late 2016 , the student come through first post in theGauteng Accelerator Programme ( GAP ) Innovation Competitions . The booty was € 14,000 ( nearly $ 15,000 ) , and the chance to collaborate with wise man on his project .
“ For me , these brick are just a beginning . Eventually , I desire to create all different construction materials made from recycled products , ” Djan says . Considering that South Africans produced 108 million oodles of waste in 2011 [ PDF ] , and less than 10 percent of it was recycled , his aspiration could n’t be more timely — or necessary .
[ h / tFrance 24 The Observers ]
