News Archive

A group of Engineering students has a Christmas present for Cambodia: the gift of clean water, healthy living and sustainable fishing for the people of Lake Ton Le Sap.

The students won first prize in last year's Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) challenge.

They have been working with EWB this year, and with Lecturer Chris Rowles from Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, on developing their biodigester as part of a sanitation platform for the disadvantaged communities living on the lake.

They are on their way to Cambodia now with their plans and materials to make and install their invention and teach people how to turn their biological waste into fertiliser, rather than letting it pollute the lake.

Lake Ton Le Sap is the biggest freshwater lake in Asia, supporting 30,000 people whose homes are either beside or on the water. It supplies 80 per cent of Cambodia's fishery.

Mr Rowles said EWB had suggested different projects to the students which he had incorporated into the common first year engineering unit, Introduction to Professional Engineering . The challenge was based on using problem-solving and design skills to support the development of the Ton Le Sap Lake communities.

The students worked on the challenges in groups and four projects were submitted for judging: the biodigester; a solar tyre cooker as a substitute for a stove; menstrual hygiene management for the Lake women; and a composite building material for the Lake communities.

A record 7,491 first year engineering students from 26 universities in Australia and New Zealand took part in the challenge.

It is an international program to develop students' project management, communication and team skills, while working on inspirational sustainable development projects.

UWA's winning team of Rhys Daniel, Louise Minchin, Martin Kalkhoven, Robbie Revy, Patrick Donnelly and Ian Azaro chose to reduce biological wastes being returned to the Lake by producing biogas and organic fertiliser as products to improve both economic and health conditions.

"It's basically a huge plastic bag, five metres long and 800mm in diameter, that floats in the lake under a house," Mr Rowles explained. "Waste goes in and fertiliser and low pressure biogas comes out. The students will be running workshops for the local people who want to put the bags under their houses."

He said the biodigester had created a lot of interest at the EWB conference and competition judging in Melbourne last year, from delegates from Lesotho and Papua New Guinea.

The students get no credit points for continuing their work on the biodigester this year. "It is purely voluntary work," Mr Rowles said. "Their trip to Cambodia is their prize." The students will work in Cambodia with Live and Learn environment education, a non-profit NGO which focuses on poverty reduction and quality of life. Their digester will be installed by the students, fitted to a floating barge on the Ton Le Sap Lake, as part of an ongoing education project.

It is the second consecutive year that UWA has won the EWB Australia Challenge.

Mr Rowles said this year's students had been working on projects to provide rural renewal, education, fresh water, sanitation and power for indigenous people in the Komar traditional lands near Cunnamulla in south eastern Queensland. Three teams were selected for the WA finals. Their projects are: production of ice using solar power; feral animal and pest control at Bendee Downs; and renewal of the Bendee Downs shearing shed: from historic relic to cultural hub.

The solar ice project team won the WA final and will now represent WA in the EWB national final in Melbourne this week

Published in UWA News , 29 November 2010