In Pakistan, two middle school students have developed biobased products to compete in the Golden Climate Project Olympiad.
Mukarram Fatah used orange peels to repel mosquitos. “I found out that 40% methanol is naturally present in orange peels which doesn’t let it spoil,” says Mukarram tells ARY News. “Second there is citric acid in it which the mosquitoes detest seeing which I made these repellents.”
In a separate project, Yasir Jaan Notezai used pine needles to produce chip board. “Pine needles have a lot of lignin for example 50-60%,” Yari says. “Pine needles make chip boards very strong, if we try we won’t be able to break it. The advantage is that when you do deforestation and cut down the trees, it directly affects our environment. This why we have come up with this alternative of not making chip board with wood but with pine needles. One day when I was going to my village for a picnic to a forest. We picked up pine needles from the forest checked its chemical composition and realized it could be used for so much better.”