Australian Story

The Tipping Point (26x3)

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Scientist Veena Sahajwalla is a recycling superstar with some bold new ideas about how to save waste from landfill. As Australia's collective garbage guilt builds alongside the tonnes of plastic piling up in recycling depots, her innovative inventions may offer some exciting new solutions. Inspired walking the streets of her Mumbai neighbourhood as a child, Veena observed almost everything was reused and "nothing was wasted". This can-do attitude shaped her engineering career and sowed the seeds for some ground-breaking ideas, including making steel from car tyres. Now she's unveiling her latest invention, a "micro factory" that creates building materials and tiles from dumped clothes and glass. But the pressure is on to transform her latest invention into a workable idea for business and get consumers interested. It’s a revolutionary concept. But will it work outside the lab?