Indian Start-up Eco-friendly Tiles with Social Impact
A city start up that started making tiles from carbon emissions in January 2020 has won the third place at ClimateLaunchpad, an annual event in which 68 teams from all over the world took part virtually. Organised by EIT Climate-KIC-a European knowledge and innovation community-the event, which awards entrepreneurs, saw 3,000 participants from 56 countries pitch ideas ranging from 3D-printed food to rechargeable batteries. As part of the competition, the start-up, Carbon Craft Design, whose tiles mesh marble chips with carbon using a secret binder, was assigned mentors and went through training that helped refine their pitch to the point they coasted through the regional, national and eventually, international finals. The firm won a separate cash prize for its theme 'Healthy Clean Cities' besides the third place, which took its total cash award to 7,500 euros-roughly over Rs 6 lakh. "We probably won because our idea marries environment-friendliness with social impact," says Tejas Sidnal (32), an architect, whose tiles boast the craftsmanship of artisans from Gujarat's Morbi, the world's second-largest tile-manufacturing hub. Made from emissions and other materials gleaned by "calibrated" hands of artisans in Morbi, each tile, according to the start-up, is equivalent to cleaning 30,000 litres of air. "Over 39% of the world's carbon emissions comes from the construction and building industry," says Sidnal, adding that most people don't realise that bricks, made from burning clay in a kiln, are also not eco-friendly. "The fumes cause pollution."
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