Viraam - an alternative approach to heavy vehicle waste management

The journey began with a visit to Behrampur, Garage no.3 in Ahmedabad. This is where the Gujarat Government heavy vehicles are auctioned and brought in for dismantling and then the individual parts are distributed among the shopkeepers who deal in those particular body parts.


The trip revealed that nothing goes waste over here, right from a tiny screw to the engine, tank and chassis. There's an entire network to use, reuse or recycle the body parts. The only possible direction that we could think of was somehow not to recycle the products leading to down scaling its strength but to reuse them in an innovative way.


After a lot of brainstorming and ideas the final concept that was agreed upon was a highway inn, built using truck scrap. For ex: rooms were made out of truck bodies, tables out of the extra timber, seating arrangements using tyres and driver's seats, columns using chassis structure.


Also, this involved giving the dry weather of Ahmedabad a thought while making the architectural structures. So, simple ideas like mud wall backing for the South facing walls to keep the metal body structures cool, bamboo roofs, planned landscapes and grey water harvesting were incorporated into the design.
The name Viraam comes from Hindi language meaning 'a pause'. Consider it a pause in your journey or 'a pause and think' of how things we ignore can be utilized in a different way. Overall, it was a two week fun experience which involved thinking, architecture, branding and 3D modelling.

Fig. 1 Behrampur scrap yard
Fig. 2 Building the brand

Fig. 3: View of the highway inn

Fig. 4 : View of the rooms
Fig.5 : Sample structure

Antim Dham_Cremation

In Hindu religion, the corpse is cremated by burning them on funeral pyre (Wood heaped for burning a dead body as a funeral rite). This practice is prevailing since centuries along with the religious rituals and beliefs. There are several places/grounds particularly for cremation and it takes around 300-400kg of wood to burn the corpse. This tradition or practice needs to be stopped in the view of the environment degradation and deforestation. The Govt. came out with an eco-friendly solution known as - ELECTRIC CREMATOR, but it is been rarely used by the people, because of their religious beliefs do not allow them to follow so. There are many harmful effects of cremating the corpse, as they are burnt in the open area and there is no way to control the gases released from the burning corpse.

Because of wrong notions about the electric furnace people do not want to use it. They are deprived of performing the traditional rituals and also the current scenario of electric furnaces in India is horrifying. It is a very mechanical and unemotional process to witness. Hence people cannot connect to it keeping having a religious picture back in their mind. Also the family or loved ones of the deceased would want him to be treated with love and respect instead of just executing him in a monstrous looking electric room.

Now looking at the entire picture we have tried to inculcate some of the elements of the traditional open air cremation ceremony in the electrical cremation process. We believe that in order to reduce pollution and deforestation in this case electric furnaces are needed to be used but in a slight traditional way so that the general crowd does not hesitate to use it. It should be made more inviting and religious looking which should not only pertain to one religion but have a common identity or symbol of god or peace.

For redesigning we using elements like whole furnace to be shifted to the open air, pseudo wooden structure for placing the body on, traditional necessary rituals can be performed, lighting the fire by hand so that there is a presence of natural fire and the entire set should look more familiar and less mechanized.

We call this system of cremation as the OPEN ELECTRIC CREMATION SYSTEM which is a hybrid of the existing systems.

Need to encourage by Government

Since countless years, it is the custom to burn the cadaver and it has become an acceptable practice. It not cakes walk to change the old customs and make the new one acceptable. Definitely, people don’t accept the new customs readily. Governmental efforts are always needed to guide and make the people aware about the use of electric cremation CNG based cremation.

Wood fire should be banned for cremation of bodies

A visit to Nigam Bodh in Delhi, near Yamuna River, shows the environment hazard created by open burning of dead bodies. The bodies should be burnt in close chambers with tall chimney. It is better if government can ban use of wood for cremation with support from religious heads. CNG and electric based cremation is safer, less pollutant, cheaper and clean system.

By: Sushil Mate

Re-fuse!

Re-fuse! On lookers finding out the alternative of plastic bags for shopping.

Reincarnating the wreckers

Ahmedabad's heavy vehicle wrecking businesses is an archetype reflecting the recycling economy in India. As vehicles arrive in the yard, a collective of independent dismantling specialists appraise it, assessing opportunities for their customers , self initiated redistribution networks or re-fabrication businesses.The colony descends upon the automotive, detaching external parts, disconnecting and separating components, leaving only the parts for which no innovative applications can be found. These are subsequently sent to recycling smelters. Objects are sorted and allocated value according to various secondary adaptive uses . Wheels are given second lives on bullock carts, tyres are stripped to supply nylon cords and their rubber becomes shoe soles. Engines are dismantled for components or augmented with dynamos to become generators, chassis are transformed into structural building materials and differentials adapted for pappadam extruders. Some components are sold and find their way into rebuilt appliances elsewhere in India to compete alongside big name brands. The list goes on.

Everyday the value of such efficient 'reuse' scenarios continues largely unnoticed within the larger production economy. Particular business collectives enjoy a reputation for providing quality recycled components and services, yet opportunities for building capacity and adding value in these essential businesses are difficult for the collectives to leverage. How should we evaluate the value of such businesses, and what role can design play in developing opportunities and stature of these conduits for reincarnation technology?

Dead end for design

At first glance the death industry may appear to be distant from the concerns of design and the eye of the general public, but on closer inspection the complexities of these essential services present an opportunity to consider the social and material implications of the funeral. We are unlikely to consider the disposal stage of the body until it becomes necessary, but it is an essential part of the human lifecycle. The treatment of bodies following cremation presents an important issue for Ahmedabad authorities, residents of the city and over 1200 villages across the state, both in terms of safe disposal of ash and sensitive orchestration of ceremonies. Customs for each of the major religions in India vary. Muslim believe in burial, whilst the bodies of Hindu, Jain and Seikhs are cremated. Cremation practices also vary, the handling of body & body ashes being treated differently according to both religious belief and the method of cremation.Traditional funeral pyres consume up to 600kg of wood fuel in the burning of a single body, where the ash of the bodies become mixed with that of timber. Remaining ash, either untouched according to belief or excess to the needs of family members becomes both a disposal problem and a potential resource. Government initiatives promote the use of electric cremation ovens as they are both more efficient and result in less disposable ash. The electric cremation facility at Sabarmati is uncomfortably industrial in character. Preparation of the body occurs adjacent to the oven door. Distinguished locations to mourn, to bathe, or garden for families to gather are absent, the sense of personal or ceremonial aesthetic more comfortably associated with the loss of a loved family member negated. Despite subsidies offered for electric furnace cremations, many families choose the traditional open pyre, offering more personal engagement and accessibility to the symbolism of devout spiritual practice. What role has design in rethinking the relationship between sensitivity and efficacy of the funeral ?

Cutting Edge - Ahmedabad's Kite Festival

The beautiful images conjured in Khaled Hosseini's ' The kite runner' shift context in today's Ahmedabad . Stacks of kites and festival merchandise stockpiled for the big day have all but gone, providing a welcome boost to the livelihoods of local merchants , kitemakers and manja wallah's who struggle to keep the kitemaking tradition viable in the face of shifting economic and social opportunities.

As thursday's Uttarayan festival reached it's climax , the Times of India newspaper reported on a the impacts of festive kite flying celebrations across the state of Gudjarat. Over recent years growing concerns have emerged about the impact from deadly 'manja', the kite flying cord responsible for the death of increasing numbers of people and birds as they cut across the bodies of unwitting victims. Treated with a brightly coloured coating of sharp glass powder to cut cords of competing kites during the jubilant flying frenzy, kite manja interrupts the flight of local and migratory birds and drifts across the bodies of kite flyers, pedestrians, motor cycle and bicycle riders. The entanglement of kite strings has led to electrocutions as it becomes entangled in overhead electrical cable, trees and buildings. Children also become victims of accidents caused by impacting vehicles or falling from terraces as they chase drifting kites along the streets and rooftops, and an weblike tangle of waste nets the city. A total of 657 birds and 250 people are reported injured during the festivities, including 4 human and an unknown number of bird deaths.

The Uttarayan festival reflects the classic complexities of a Horst Rittel 'wicked problem' , where the problems and solutions are closely interlinked, and may be difficult to define in absolute terms. Indeed there may be no absolute solution. For design this presents a challenge to ameliorate the unacceptable impacts of kite flying without killing off the fun and the fragile economy of the festival; to achieve a beneficial balance of cultural, economic and environmental concerns.

Plastic industry – redirecting the aesthetics of waste

The ubiquitous thin film plastic bag continues to present a range of environmental burdens across the globe, creating havoc for wildlife, impeding waste processing and defying attempts for its effective recycling.

In India, where self organised labour finds efficient recycling economies in the dismantling and disposal cycles of many industries, thin film plastics continue to present a problem. Though many types plastics are collected by ragpickers thin film types are rejected, partially because of the difficulty in separating the film from putrescible goods they often contain, and because they effort in collection does not equate to an economically viable reward when sold by weight to recycled waste merchants.

Despite government bans on their production in Gujarat, thin film plastics, along with the machinery to produce them are openly visible in the marketplace. Across the country, sacred cows pick waste food from the streets, occasionally ingesting the plastic bags leading to intestinal problems that require veterinary treatment and even lead to the animal's death. Additional measures such as charging customers fro bags, complete withdrawal from supermarket distribution and the promotion of reusable shopping bags all assist to create a schism between profitable supply, disposable convenience and the environmental burden attributed to the plastics

However, any success of such initiatives depends as much on consumers changing habits as it does on structural change. Redirecting attitudes that are dependent on convenience & disposability present challenging opportunities for design to rethink social infrastructure in the context of consumer psychology & community interaction..

If you list down all the items you use since the start of your day, more than 75% of it will be made of plastic and plastic products. It is common knowledge that this plastic is not bio-degradable and is going to remain in our eco-system for a very long time. Numerous efforts have been made to solve this problem but it seems to be very persistent. However, every small step taken towards resolving this issue can collectively make a major change. We cannot live without plastic so we might as well learn how to live with it.

We started by analysing the current plastic waste collection and recycling system.