MIAMI: An Indian student with a farming background has found a green alternative to burning tons of rice husks and straw by using the waste as housebuilding material.
Bisman Deu, a Delhi student, 16, came up with the idea of recycling the unwanted rice husks and straw into an alternative building material.
More than half of the world’s people eat rice as a staple food and, for every five tons of rice harvested, one ton of husk is produced. The cereal residue has little commercial value for farmers, but Deu hopes to change that. “I want to provide cheap and affordable housing material to people, because many live in homes made of mud, which can’t always withstand the weather. This would mean farmers also have a new source of income,” she said.
After asking farmers how they would like to use the recycled product, Deu took to her mother’s kitchen to create a prototype, with support from the Social Innovation Relay initiative. Mixing the waste with a resin and pressing the mixture into particleboards, she came up with what she calls “green wood”…