Problems such as global warming, pollution, depletion of the resources and health problems have gained considerable interest lately. In particular, large and densely populated cities such as Delhi tend to combine high amount of pollutants with a very high population, which results in very serious health problems.
CITY ISSUE
In the case of Delhi, traffic is a major problem. It is the main reponsible of air pollution and causes many health problems. Delhi’s communities and government have had to face a dramatic increase in pollutants resulting from the surge in personalized vehicles. Historically the city has relied largely on small, 2 and 3-wheeled vehicles equipped with 2-stroke engines, which emitted more than 70 percent of hydrocarbons and 50 percent of carbon monoxide in Delhi’s air. Overloaded, poorly maintained buses and diesel trucks are also traditional fixtures on the city streets. This combination led to a dramatic rise in pollution from total suspended particles (TSP), which reached a high of 450 μg/m³ in 1996. The city is the largest city in India by its size, the second by its population, with more than 22 millions in the whole conurbation. Delhi represents indeed:
• The fourth most polluted city in the world in terms of suspended particle matters
• 8000 premature deaths due to traffic
• 70% of the pollution is due to car traffic
• 1000 more vehicles everyday in Delhi
Since the early 1990s, India’s Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) has undertaken a multi-pronged approach to solving Delhi’s air pollution problem. Officials recognized early on that vehicles contributed almost two thirds of total pollution figures and initially focused their efforts on converting Delhi’s public transportation fleet to cleaner fuels; the first Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) bus was launched on an experimental basis in 1998. Negotiations between the local and national governments and private contractors culminated in 2001 with the progressive conversion of city buses. Delhi now boasts the largest fleet of CNG-powered buses in the world, and has invested in a suitable network of CNG stations to cater for the demand. While buses account for less than 1% of vehicles on the road, they serve almost half of Delhi’s travel needs.
WASTES =RESOURCES
The recent rise of the price of oil has raised awareness that humans had considerably tapped into oil resources and that we only had a few years left if humans kept up with the same rhythm. However, global resources in general have dramatically shrunk in the last two centuries and oil should not be the tree that hides the forest. Materials such as indium, hafnium, or antimony have between 5 and 15 years left of resources. Also, most of the manufactured products such as cars which rely on fossil raw materials are going to become obsolete when they sell out. At this time, the quantity of manufactured materials will be higher than the resources. Therefore, the current one way flow “resources to product to waste” needs to be curved and then cycled. We need a dramatic shift of paradigm: wastes are no longer wastes: they are resources.
Manufactured products such as cars mix natural nutrients (that is products that can decompose safely) and technical nutrients (that is products extremely valuable for the industrial sphere such as copper, chromium, indium, though harmful for the environment) to produce, the so called monstrous hybrids according to the cradle of cradle philosophy. For example, if we take the leather of the seats, it mixes natural nutrients (leather) that could decompose naturally in normal conditions with technical nutrients such as chromium coming from the tanning, extremely valuable for the technical sphere. By mixing them, the product can no longer decompose safely and the technical nutrients are lost for the technical sphere. Therefore, it seems that the potential now is higher in the manufactured products than in the actual resources. Therefore, we want to see wastes as resources and manufactured products as pools of useful nutrients.
CONCEPT
The project is a recycling center made of recycled cars. Because of the development of the public transportation system and the depletion of their resources, personal vehicles are going to become obsolete and their number will significantly decrease. Instead of throwing them, we will use them as resources. Composed of 74% of metal, they provide good material for construction. Therefore, manufactured products which have polluted their entire life are the base of our new environmental device. In its functioning, it uses and recycles all of its energies. It provides new materials and services to the city. It is a wonderful laboratory which experiments a new kind of project that inverts the current one way process turning resources into wastes. We dream of a project that would turn wastes back into resources, something that would looks like:
Wastes + Pollution + CO2 -> Resources + O2
We aim at reversing the flows that turn resources into wastes. Ultimately, all the products should circulate, all the technical nutrients should circulate in the technical sphere, and all the natural nutrients should be reused in the natural sphere. All the gas that are produced should be consumed somewhere else. Verticality and horizontality is over. Let’s cycle.
The monument itself is, by its shape, a tribute to cycling. LO2P is a metaphor of cycles, of the production of oxygen, of a real change of relationship with nature. The building takes advantage of all the energy it produces, makes use of all its wastes. The one way resource to waste process is over, the relationship between man and nature is here based on cycles. It combines efficient, state of the art separation processes, purifying of the air through natural processes, renewable energies and production of renewable fuel for vehicles. Finally, the whole ring cleans up the major environmental problem in Delhi: the suspended particle matters. Through a series of rotating filters, the particles are sucked up and trapped in a net, thus cleaning up the air. It becomes a major actor, an urban device which understands and helps the city.
VISION
The recycling loop aims at closing up the loop of traffic within Delhi. All the impacts of the car are tackled in this project. The materials used to produce cars are separated and purified thanks to the center powered by renewable energies that produces resources from manufactured products. The waste heat and carbon dioxide from the recycling center are used to grow plants that are transformed into biofuels, together with the natural nutrients from the wastes. The wastes become resources, unwanted gas under normal conditions such as carbon dioxide becomes valuable gas that enter into the growth of the plants. Eventually, by curving the material flows, all wastes become valuable materials and all materials enter complete cycles.
The recycling loop becomes an integral part of Delhi’s life by using the wastes, turning them into valuable materials, producing biofuels to use renewable sources of energy and cleaning up the air. It brings industrial materials to the industrial sphere and contributes to enhance the competitiveness of the local industries. It provides clean energy for the neighborhood; it permanently grows trees that are planted throughout the city in order to further clean it up. It’s the starting point of a new relationship between man and nature.
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