HIRAYA

Universal Event | How Does Climate Change Affect You?

HIRAYA: FROM PLASTIC POLLUTION TO SHELTER SOLUTION

High-Level Project Summary

The Philippines is the 3rd contributor to plastic pollution in the world, with at least 2.7 million metric tons of plastic waste generated every year. [1] Plastics are largely derived from fossil fuels and continue to emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) at each stage of their life cycle, from extraction up to and including their End-of-Life [2]. Our project mainly uses waste single-use plastics (SUP) aggregates up to 50% by weight in our roof tile technology. Upcycling is important for significant cutting of carbon footprint emissions. Ultimately, it’s putting a value on daily plastic trash and changing the norm where waste Single-Use Plastics are not just garbage but a commodity.

Link to Final Project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFvaUS4sulE

Link to Project "Demo"

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1X1s6IOk0uAnwG5yNsGVmBslfTkjTt9pP

Detailed Project Description

HIRAYA is cost-effective and sustainable confinement of waste SUP as filler in a bio-based high-density insulation board. The prototype is a good candidate for non-load-bearing building materials such as roof tiles. The appreciable property of this product is its ability to resist heat flow across its thickness, R-value of 3.0 per inch, due to the high-density foam matrix. The problem of water permeability, lower bulk density, and weak mechanical strength can be addressed by densifying the shredded SUP into aggregates and applying of polymer-concrete topcoat layer which could enhance its strength, water tightness, chemical resistance, freeze-thaw durability, and abrasion resistance.

The success of this project will greatly affect how society will perceive a functional roofing system. The appreciable properties and components will play important criteria in choosing a resilient, cost-effective, and eco-friendly modern Filipino home. Undoubtedly, it is changing how society will identify waste plastics – not as garbage but as valuable products. It will also have a great impact on our economic development by employing a new recycling method of waste SUP and a huge potential product to be commercialized. From the gathering of raw materials, household communities already play an important role by segregating waste soft plastics from hard ones. Community-driven waste recovery will fuel a certain city or locale to boost its efficiency in waste collection and potentially generates income. The business model will then be easily adopted by other communities.

With the availability of product validation and material testing through financial assistance, it could potentially produce two (2) types of viable products and partner with four (4) institutions/agencies where revenues could reach up to 60%. Moreover, an additional production process could mean job creation and capital acquisition. The enhancement of the product helps housing developers who want to shift to eco-friendly, innovative, roofing technology by densifying the wastes SUP aggregates and adding a polymer-concrete topcoat layer, thereby, conforming with industry standards for roofing technology.

The whole project was made feasible with the major help of online sources readily available for the public such as Data.NASA.gov for up-to-date Carbon Dioxide Data, Vecteezy and Pexels for videos, and several scientific journal articles.

Space Agency Data

In the highly urbanized regions in the Philippines, the average plastic waste generation rate is 33.9 kg/cap/year. Of this amount, 35% is leaked into the environment and consists of mostly waste SUP, which is incinerated at 12% rate.

The data readily available on space agency regarding the Carbon Dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is a great help as well as a warning for us to really appreciate our environment; not just by nationality or gender or species, but rather as tenants of Earth.

Climate change is real as the data given are all scientifically obtained and studied by various experts. The increasing trend of Carbon Dioxide concentration [3] indicates that we must do something to not further worsen the situation. We were inspired to make products that are eco-friendly and to take a step to lower our carbon footprint. These numbers are a big help in forecasting the concentration level of CO2 in the coming years. More research studies will emerge on the correlations of these values to Climate Change in terms of frequency of typhoons, rising global temperatures, rising sea levels, etc.

According to data, the annual CO2 emissions of the Philippines last 2020 is about 136.02 million tonnes which is equivalent to 0.4% annual share of global CO2 emissions [4]. This number might seem insignificant but the effect of rising average GHGs increases surface temperature that brought devastating typhoons to the country.

Hackathon Journey

From how the first men learned to start a fire up to the men behind for exploration of both our world and beyond, freedom of information is a significant spearhead for the further evolution of humans. We must always advocate collective intelligence for us to be able to reflect on our experiences, solve our current challenges, and be prepared to face upcoming obstacles.

One of the challenges we are facing is the dire need to lessen the rate of climate change, which was brought by decades of pollution and disregard for the environment. Our team chooses this challenge since our expertise is aligned with the opportunity to provide specific solutions. We believe we will have a chance to make an impact. In our current setting, climate change is imminent, by the fact that tropical storms are becoming more frequent and getting worse. Alongside this, the rising population brought an increase in our demand for plastics.

The project’s fruition is a collective effort of the team by researching previous projects and incorporating our ideas. Our goal is to provide excellent building materials with the use of bio-based high-density insulation boards/waste single-use plastic (SUP) composites. We decided to select roofing tiles since it is a non-load bearing part of the house and commonly affected by heavy rains and strong winds. The roof tile must be durable enough to withstand extreme weather conditions and not be destroyed or damaged easily.

Just like our roof tile, we must not waver in the difficulties we encounter. Rather, we use our full resources and knowledge to reach our desired results with the aspirations of those who believed in us. It helped us along the way for our project to be successful and make the world better than it was yesterday.