Professor Veena Sahajwalla, Materials Scientist, Engineer and Inventor, will Address the National Press Club of Australia on “The Hidden Value in Our Rubbish: Communities, the Environment, and the Science of Remanufacturing.”
Blurb:
Australia’s universities are home to some of the world’s most practical solutions to pressing global challenges. Professor Veena Sahajwalla, pioneering inventor, engineer and 2022 NSW Australian of the Year, is leading a revolution in green manufacturing and sustainable materials. In this address, she will explore how we can better connect public research to industry, policy and community—transforming campus breakthroughs into commercial solutions that change the world.
Bio:
2022 NSW Australian of the Year, Professor Veena Sahajwalla is an internationally recognised materials scientist, engineer and inventor leading a revolution in green manufacturing and sustainable materials.
She is renowned for pioneering the high temperature transformation of waste in the production of a new generation of ‘green materials.’ In 2018 Veena launched the world’s first e-waste microfactorie and in 2019 she launched her plastics microfactorie, a recycling technology breakthrough.
As the founding Director of the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, she is producing a new generation of green materials and products made entirely, or primarily, from waste.
Veena is facilitating the roll out of safe, cost-effective ‘waste to value’ solutions via her unique microfactory model.
In future, these small-scale microfactories will enable regions to produce many of the products, materials and resources they need locally, using resources largely derived from waste including mattresses, clothing, and old printers (e-waste).
This new approach could overturn today’s centralised, globalised model of industry, as agile technologies make manufacturing more local, flexible and socially beneficial.
