Students Invent Machine that Turns Plastic Bottles into Clean Water

Recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours, yet for every six water bottles we use, only one is recycled; the rest end up in landfills or in our rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Thankfully the new generation of engineers across the world is concerned about the plastic waste generated annually, and is leaving no stone unturned in their quest to minimize its poisonous effects on our environment.

If in 2014, a Pittsburg startup found a way to turn plastic bottles into fabric, create jobs, and help impoverished Haitians, in 2015, three engineering students at Canada’s University of British Columbia invented the ProtoCycler, a device that recycled plastic bottles waste plastic into a spool of plastic filament, an important material used in 3D printers.

Now, Satyendra Meena and Anurag Meena, two final year students from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, have created a revolutionary machine that dispenses 300 milliliters of clean (RO and UV treated) drinking water – in exchange of used plastic bottles or aluminum cans.

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Trestor, an Indian startup, is helping the duo develop and manufacture the hi-tech machine, which has a water storage capacity of eight liters, a 7-inch interactive touch screen, Internet connectivity, Bluetooth interface and a notification system for administrators to alert them on usage and maintenance.

Trestor founder Kunal Dixit told The Free Press Journal:

“The machine has three compartments, one for plastic, second for aluminum and third for any other waste that people might put into it. When a bottle is inserted into it, the machine crushes it to one-sixth of its size; it can crush bottles of up to one-liter capacity… It is not only a machine, it is a mindset. It gives people an incentive for keeping their surroundings clean.”

At present, the initiative is being piloted in Chandigarh and Bombay, but eventually Trestor plans to install these machines in malls, cinema halls, railway stations, parks and several other high-footfall areas.

Dixit told The Hindu:

“Through our ‘Swachh Machine’, we intend to inculcate a culture of cleanliness among people by incentivizing them for every used bottle or aluminum can they put in the machine, in lieu of which they will be rewarded with a digital value token called ‘trest’. This can also be exchanged for 300 ml of clean drinking water.”