Reduction of Plastic Waste on Campus
Ban on Single Use Plastic Policy
- All the campuses are made free of single-use plastic.
- All the shopkeepers, staff and students are encouraged to use paper bags and cloth bags.
- Student projects and start-ups using waste plastics have been supported and promoted.
Events and Activities to Promote the Ban of Plastic Consumption
Centurion University has a Research Centre for Waste to Wealth Management that focuses on innovative waste management solutions, including plastic waste reduction. They are actively involved in recycling plastic waste to produce construction materials like paving blocks. Additionally, the University conducts webinars and awareness programs related to plastic waste management.
The Research Centre for Waste to Wealth Management comprises a team of faculty and research scholars from different disciplines. Waste management is aligned with the 5-Rs – Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle and the Research Centre for Waste-to-Wealth Management explores innovative waste management solutions to treat waste towards producing useful recycled materials, generate energy and create valuable resources. One of the subunits the centre focuses upon is the Plastic Waste Management where in the plastic waste is utilized to produce construction materials.
Pavement Blocks Manufacturing Process:
Making of high-strength Paver blocks from different plastic wastes. Plastic waste is produced inside the campus from various sources. Our objective is to utilize these super-strength materials and explore their strength to make new materials. The paver blocks are made from waste plastics by our research centre.
The Pavement blocks are prepared at the CUTM campus in various shapes such as dumb-bell, square, zigzag, hexagonal, and kerb stone whereas the dumbbell and square shape blocks are having a thickness of 60mm and zigzag and hexagonal 80mm. For this M30 grade of concrete is used with cement 15%, coarse aggregate at 55%, fine aggregate (sand) at 29%, and shredded waste plastic at 1%. For manufacturing this block, first, all the ingredients are fed to the concrete mixture in dry condition and mixed properly. After that, the required amount of water is added to the dry mix in the concrete mixture, and run the mixture for a few minutes to confirm the homogeneous mix of the entire fraction of materials later removed from it.
Workshops and Webinars
- Centurion University participated in NITI Aayog – UNDP 3rd Regional Workshop on “Urban Plastic Waste Management” – March 2022
https://research.cutm.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Waste-to-Wealth-Management.pdf (Page 28)
- The Research Centre for Waste to Wealth Management in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha organized a webinar on “Wealth Creation through Plastic Waste Management” for “National Pollution Prevention Day” – December 2022.
https://research.cutm.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Waste-to-Wealth-Management.pdf (Page 32)
- Centurion University conducted a webinar on “Innovative Approaches Towards Plastic Waste Management” – June 2021”.
https://research.cutm.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Waste-to-Wealth-Management.pdf (Page 36)