The western region of Uganda is highly populated, leading to a large amount of waste that unfortunately finds its way to the drainage system, amongst other places it shouldn’t be. An efficient recycling center with an effective collection method is what’s needed to make Uganda a cleaner place and to better the environment.
The IEEE Uganda section and Young professionals teamed up to combat this issue with the establishment of a collection method and recycling center at Ankole Institute. Ankole Institute is a mixed institute in the western region – Isingiro district that strives to equip youth with vocational hands-on skills that will help them to solve daily problems and survive in life as well.
The recycling center will use a shredder and extruder which will be assembled with support from Trisec Electricals Limited. After the plastic is picked up from the machine, it will be categorized into either thermo-softening or thermosetting where it will then be shredded, melted, and molted into a paving block. These blocks will be used in both developing school and home grounds to combat dusty compounds and soil erosion.
The activities of the project will be carried out by IEEE members and volunteers in student branches at Kyambogo, Makerere, MUST Universities, secondary school students, and Changing Lives Uganda. The establishment of the recycling center will be used as education sessions where students will be exposed to basic principles of engineering and will learn teamwork, time management, machine assembly, machine operation, performing neat work, and maintaining safety. The goal is also to encourage high school students to later join IEEE and develop a love for engineering courses after being exposed to the principles of physics and engineering.
This project was granted $7,434 from EPICS in IEEE to help make Uganda a cleaner place through a much-needed recycling system. The project aims to reduce pollution through the conversion of trash into blocks, and once they are out of use, re-crushed to yield new blocks.