Indian and UK organisations in NASA's waste management forum

Sunday, 22 July 2012 - 8:12pm India News Bulletin Desk

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Image: Wikimedia Commons (jamesdale10)

India’s Attero Recycling, an electronic and electrical goods e-Waste management services company; and Goonj, an NGO aiming to reduce textiles waste; as well as the UK’s renewable energy company SeAB have made it to NASA’s forum on waste management.

The forum -- called LAUNCH: Beyond Waste – aimed to identify and accelerate solutions in waste management, an immediate issue for astronauts aboard the International Space Station, as well as people around the world, according to the US aerospace research agency.

The programme identified innovations poised to create transformational change in critical sustainability issues. Indians Nitin Gupta from Attero Recycling and Anshu Goonj from Goonj along with Sandra Sassow from UK’s SeAB had the opportunity to connect to leaders and advisors for resources and guidance to accelerate the implementation of their technologies, businesses and programmes.

In addition to the three innovators, there were six other innovators from US, Japan and Kenya.

The innovators were chosen because of their groundbreaking technologies and programmes that address a broad range of waste issues such as waste-to-energy; eWaste, which includes discarded electrical or electronic devices; upcycling, the process of using waste to create new materials; recycling; agricultural waste and conservation; medical waste; sustainable chemicals and materials; and improved sanitation, according to NASA.

The innovators discussed their most pressing business and program issues with LAUNCH council members, who represent the business, waste management, investment, international development, policy, engineering, science, communications and sustainability sectors.

For NASA, LAUNCH forum draws parallels between resource challenges humans face aboard the space station and on Earth.

“With no natural resources in the hostile environment of space, astronauts must generate, collect, store, conserve, recycle and manage their resources wisely,” the agency noted. The innovators could offer problem-solving expertise to crucial conversations on sustainability-related topics with innovative problem solvers from around the world.

The three-day conference kicked off on Friday, July 20, 2012 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and was opened by NASA along with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department and Nike Inc.