Making replica Gandi glasses for PM

Watch the below video of the plastic filaments made from e-waste plastic in our plastics SMaRT Centre MICROfactorie that featured in a presentation and gift by then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Excerpt from the UNSW announcement:

In a tribute to innovation, sustainability and advanced manufacturing, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull presented India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a replica of Mahatma Gandhi’s iconic spectacles – made entirely from waste using breakthrough recycling technology developed at UNSW.

Using plastics from the electronic goods (e-waste) that we throw away, researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney transformed this common waste into plastic filaments for 3D printers, enabling the glasses to be ‘printed out’. Invented by Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla and her team at UNSW’s Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology, this world-first sustainable technology is part of a cost-effective micro-factory solution that can safely recycle toxic e-waste into plastics filaments, valuable metal alloys and other materials, where ever it is stockpiled.

This is a remarkable innovation which takes waste, something so simple and so obvious, and enables communities to deliver job creation and economic progress.

“Veena’s ground breaking research, coupled with the ingenuity of her young team, helped give birth to this symbol of hope for a sustainable future,” said UNSW’s President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Jacobs, who is accompanying Prime Minister Turnbull and Education Minister Simon Birmingham to New Delhi.

Read the UNSW announcement about the gift