Three students — M Mohammed Ijaz, G Sudarshan and G Raghu Bharathy — of Sri Ramakrishna Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore, did their school proud when the Garbage Robot, GARBOT, they designed fetched the school an Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL).

Swachh Bharat Mission

“The model is designed to address the issue of solid waste management. Strewn garbage all over the place, the sight of overflowing garbage bins, unpleasant odour and resultant health hazard made these youngsters come up with this idea, which also is in sync with the Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Mission,” school Principal R Ravi told BusinessLine .

Explaining the working, he said: “GARBOT is designed to store extra garbage (two times the existing capacity) and prevent overflow of the dump. The garbage collected is compressed at the bottom of the bin (using an in-built electrical compressor) and the process repeated till its reaches maximum bin capacity. At this level, the machine starts automatically, and the bin moves on a conveyor belt to transfer the garbage to a transportable bin.

“Once full, this transportable bin will be sealed, and a message communicated to the Corporation server that the bin is ready for transport. Sewage discharged during the compression process is collected in trays and treated. The compressed waste is then segregated into bio-degradable and non-bio-degradable and processed.”

The school run by the SNR Sons Charitable Trust is among the 217 schools identified across the country for establishing ATL in its premises under the Centre’s NITI Aayog programme.

Present garbage scenario

The daily garbage generation in the city alone is around 500 tonnes, and close to 200 containers are used for garbage disposal.

“Using GARBOT, we will need only 100 containers, and the capacity can be doubled; the whole process is automated,” Ravi said.

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