All of our projects rely on partnerships, and few are more essential than those we make with local universities that support our communities with research and development. The model is always the same: we look for a university that has an engineering, industrial or product design department; identify one or more local designers and engineers who can work through that department; set-up an R&D facility in the department; equip the workshop with the necessary WFL technology; and begin experimenting with local waste plastic and fibrous materials to make the composite sheets that will eventually become salable products. We transfer the basic materials knowledge to the people working in the facility who, in tern, transfer that knowledge to the local communities, which eventually become the beneficiaries of the project. Our collaborators have included Queens University in Canada, Rhode Island School of Design in the US, University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, the Universities of Moratuwa, Jaffna and Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka and, now, Xochicalco in Mexico.
Xochicalco is a small private university with branches in Tijuana, Ensenada, and Mexicali. It has a small design and architecture department and a very generous design director, Yael Reynoso, who gave us space to set-up an R&D facility. We are working with two wonderful designers, Fabiola Rizo and Anjelica Sandoval, an you can see some examples of the work they’ve been doing on our Instagram page – https://instagram.com/wasteforlife