Work experience fair showcases artefacts highlighting theme of ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’

Fourteen-year-old Aysha Minnath never leaves discarded bottles or paper cups in the waste bin. She has a passion to convert “useless” items into beautiful artefacts, and her talent was on full display at the work experience fair held at Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School as part of the Kerala State School Sasthrolsavam here on Friday.

“I had mainly worked on the topic of creating teaching modules using waste materials,” said the Standard 9 student of WOVHSS, Muttil, Wayanad, as she started arranging her products for evaluation by the panel of judges. A model of a digestive system was made using toilet cleaner bottles, a broken hose, and damaged tubes. Matchsticks were neatly arranged to make Roman letters on a chart paper. “A spoon holder that could be kept in the kitchen was made using the front grill of a table fan,” she said.

The competition in the category of making products using waste materials witnessed the domination of girl students. Like professional craftspersons, they came up with several interesting products in the allotted time of three hours.

Nadiya, a Plus Two student of SRV Higher Secondary School, Ernakulam, tied three used bicycle rims and kept a cardboard piece on top of it to create a coffee table. “A used cardboard box was turned into a small storage box. I also used six use and throw bottles to set up a side stand,” she said. 

Sonu, a Standard 9 student of GHSS, Kuzhumathicaud, Kollam, loves to create useful products out of used tyres of trucks and autorickshaws. “I made a flower pot using such a discarded tyre,” he said, pointing towards the neatly designed product. The judges said most participants could come up with innovative products out of waste materials.