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17 Mar 2021

Winner at the ‘Wacom Design Challenge 2020’

‘Shaping waste to Reshape Lives‘ by Siddharth Sangal (M Des 2020-22) won the Wacom Design Challenge 2020, Co-organised by IIT Hyderabad. More than 300 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year, leaving harmful imprints on the environment and the preference for plastic products is adversely affecting the livelihood of ‘Non-Timber Forest Products’ artisans and compelling them to abandon their craft in order to adopt alternate means of livelihood. Hence developing malleable composite material from abundantly available and unseen NTFP(nontimber forest produce), biopolymers (cellulose, chitosan, pectin) and industry waste/leftovers.

The proposal was to help NTFP industry workers and artisans to acquire the skills of developing composite materials from NTFP waste/leftovers and make a wide range of products from it and to collaborate with local artisans and make use of locally available materials and tools, enabling them to become self-reliant post-Covid by generating additional income.