Green Tech

Room 1 (why)

Our planet earth, our home right now is facing serious environmental problems. The climate crisis is accelerating at unprecedented rate and unfortunately, neither we are ready for it nor we are taking it seriously. Some of the biggest environmental problems that our plant is facing at present are Food Wastage, Biodiversity Loss, Plastic Pollution, Deforestation, Air Pollution, Global Warming from Fossil Fuels, and Melting Ice Caps. The main culprit behind all these problems is no one other than human being. The main purpose of Green Tech company is to look for the more sustainable, biodegradable, and ecofriendly products.

Some Cold, Hard Facts
Here are some eyes opening facts related to pollution:
 A bottle of plastic roughly takes 400-500 years to decompose whereas an indestructible PET container will never decompose.
 A normal shopping bag takes almost 100 years to decompose. In market less than 1% plastic bags are recycled where the remaining bags piled up in water lines, revivers, ocean, and landfills.
 A single-used diaper almost takes 500 years to biodegrade.
 The world recycles just 9% of the plastics it produces.
 Almost 14 billion pounds of waste end up in our oceans every year.
 9 out of 10 seabirds have ingested plastic and carry it in their stomachs.
 Glass bottles will never biodegrade even you give them millions of years.

Why Do We Need Eco-Friendly Products?
We must admit the fact that most people still cannot see and imagine the harm that a bottle of shampoo or a polythene bag can do to our planet. Moving towards a plastic-free, eco-friendly lifestyle is not only good for environment but it is also beneficial for the human health. By adopting eco-friendly environment we will be able to secure the future of our kids. Here is a list on how eco-friendly product have positive impact on environment.
 These products can keep our carbon footprint to a minimum, i.e. the amount of CO2 emissions released in the atmosphere as a result of our lifestyle choices and activities.
 Eco-friendly products are compostable (e.g., non-petroleum products, like paper, cardboard, natural fibers).
 These products are not resource intensive (For their production, the water, energy, and resource consumption were kept to a minimum).
 They can be recycled/ re-used.
 Less Toxic
 Usually these products are last lasting: It means that these products can be used many times (and possibly by multiple users) before they end up in a landfill.
Suitable natural material for making eco-friendly bags.
The choices of materials for making ecofriendly bags are endless. Depending on the end use of bags you can use different natural fiber. Most commonly used natural fibers for ecofriendly bags making are given below. Each natural fiber has its own advantages and disadvantages.

COTTON
Cotton is a perfect bag material because you can easily draw or print any special logo or message on it. Beside this it can be easily dyed into any color. In market mostly three types of cotton are available organic cotton, recycled cotton, and traditional cotton. Organic cotton is grown without pesticides and is typically certified using global standards. Recycled cotton consists of reclaimed organic and traditional cotton scrap (that would typically end up in a landfill), which is reclaimed or spun into new yarn. traditional cotton production involves a raw, natural fiber, but requires more chemicals than any other crop. Cotton is often regarded as the material which yields the best reusable grocery bags because of its many advantages:
Advantages
 Biodegradable/Natural plant fiber
 Renewable resource
 Strong and durable
 Soft, smooth, and pleasant to the touch
 Widely available in world
 is machine washable and easy to work with.
Disadvantages
 Not moisture resistant unless chemically treated.
 High water consumption crop
 Heavy, bulky, and expensive to ship.

HEMP
Hemp fiber is also a very good choice for the ecofriendly bags as this fiber can thrives without any fertilizer and pesticides. we can have 3 to 6 tons of fiber from one acre of hemp field. Hemp fibers also requires very little amount of water. Hemp fibers are one of Earth’s longest, strongest, and most durable fibers and are several times stronger than cotton.
Advantages
 Extremely strong, durable, and rot resistant
 Can grow in poor soils with little water.
 Refined hemp is soft, smooth, and pleasant to touch.
 Hemp gets stronger over time.
 Hemp can be blended with other materials to make highly desirable, high end fabrics with texture similar.
Disadvantages
 Can be grainy, though most is refined.  Refined hemp uses a fair amount of water.

JUTE
Jute is also a good example of eco-friendly natural materials to prepare a n ecofriendly bag. Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fiber that is spun into coarse, long threads. It can be made from various plants in the genus Corchorus, which are easy to grow and require little water. 
Advantages
 Natural renewable resource
 Jute is biodegradable and compostable.
 Cultivated
 Durable
 Require little to no pesticides or irrigation.
 Can be blended with other fabrics (like nonwoven polypropylene)
Disadvantages
 Not very resistant to moisture unless chemically treated or laminated.
 Grainy texture
 Printing limited to thick lines and bold objects (no fine details)
Supply chain
India, Pakistan, china, and Bangladesh are the leading producer of above-mentioned natural fibers. Green tech can do a joint venture with these countries and can easily have these materials in japan. We can use the advanced technology of Japan and resources of these countries to develop ecofriendly bags or any other ecofriendly product. This venture will be good for our environment.

Remarks:
This internship program was very informative for me. The group discussion that we have in these online sessions has broadened my vision and now I can clearly see the threats that our environment is facing at present. Hopefully, I will use the knowledge that I have got from these sessions in my future projects.