THREE grade 10 students at Kingston Technical High School (KTHS) have worked with their teachers to design a bio-digester system which turns organic waste into gas which can be used for cooking.

“Not all waste is meant to be thrown away; waste can be put to good use, so I guess we must not call it waste, because waste is something that must be thrown away,” one of the students, Carlan Clarke, told the Jamaica Observer last Friday as he beamed about their design which focuses on material originating from living organisms, such as plants and animals, that can be broken down and decomposed naturally.

The bio-digester was the school’s entry in the 2024 British Council STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) Innovation Challenge, which required students to identify an issue within their community and find a solution with an emphasis on the engineering aspect.

Richard Reid, acting head of the Science Department at KTHS, told the Observer that students decided to work on a project which supports Jamaica’s 2030 vision of becoming eco-friendly and contribute to sustainable development.

“We decided that we could burn organic waste and use it to produce electricity but one of the drawbacks with that is that it tends to contribute to the production of harmful substances or even greenhouse gases, and I was thinking that would not be the most efficient way of disposal.

“Organic waste still has energy in it, so if we are able to convert that into methane, which would naturally be done anyway, then we capture that methane and utilise it, we would have less waste going into the landfills,” said Reid.

He explained that the gas is produced through anaerobic bacteria that forms from the organic waste.

“It was a small project that would have been put together by us. We realise that it is not something that is very feasible at a school level so we would need more intervention from the Government to say, ‘if new facilities are being developed this type of waste should be disposed of in this way’. That way they will be able to tap into it,” added Reid.

Meanwhile, Carla Bradshaw, head of the Information Technology and Visual Arts Department at KTHS, told the Observer that it was the students’ idea to look for a way to better dispose of the waste.

“So we decided to come together, not just with one department but the school. We all came together and said, ‘okay, they asked for something innovative that will help the community’,” said Bradshaw as she outlined the genesis of the idea.

She pointed out that by turning waste into something productive, the project has the potential of benefiting several entities in the communities close to the school.

“We have the homeless shelter, the basic schools [and] we could have a situation where they could save by utilising this waste-to-fuel design to power their stoves, or provide heating [or] whatever is needed,” added Bradshaw.

“This is something we can now look at and say alright, fuel as we know it is decreasing, so gas as we know it is decreasing, because remember, these are natural resources and what happen to natural resource? They disappear over time. But when it comes on to something like this it will not disappear because we are always eating and when we consume we have waste and therefore we are saying this waste, let’s do something positive with it,” Bradshaw added.

On Friday the grade 10 students told the Observer that when they were made aware of the challenge they were excited to bring the project to life.

According to the students, while the project was merely an experiment to reduce garbage and protect the environment it can attract investment.

“We got a notice that a challenge was coming up, so we came to the physics lab and Mr [Richard] Reid gathered all of us and told us how the project is going to be created, and we had to write down all the material that we needed and then we headed to the building shop with the other Mr [Dennis] Reid and we started to create it.

“We were very excited to build it, because it looked like it could be a part of Jamaica’s future,” said Carlan.

He was supported by Jahvanie Lewis who told the Observer that as a building student the project was very exciting for him to learn, create, and execute.

The project was initially displayed at the launch of the STEAM Education in Schools programme, held at the AC Marriott hotel in St Andrew last month.