As Lebanon’s environmental woes continue to escalate, with mountains of garbage rotting in the street and power cuts lasting up to 18 hours a day, three high school teenagers have taken it upon their shoulders to change the status quo with a generator that runs on urine.
When then-grade nine students Firas Makarem, Badih Salha and Iyad Hariz were assigned an end-of-the-year science project in 2013, they chose to imitate the invention of three Nigerian girls who made headlines with their urine-powered generator.
“The idea of the [assignment] was that they had to use what they learned to solve a current environmental or social problem in their community,” said Jinan Shayya, the students’ science teacher and project supervisor at the Ras el Maten school just outside Beirut.
“I created a Facebook group for the whole class where I would share scientific news and inventions to give them ideas. They saw this idea as an inexpensive way to solve the electricity problem in their country, especially since urine is a renewable source of energy.”
The school was, like many other districts in the area, struggling with power cuts that could last the whole school day, hence the familiar need for a generator.
“We saw that [the project] combined several issues that we deal with here in Lebanon, like electricity and sewage, and the environment,” 16-year-old Salha said.
Original article by Maysaa Ajjan
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Lebanese teens invent urine-powered generator
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