At the airport in Amritsar, a student constructs ‘India’s first carbon-negative public restroom.’

Ruhani Verma, a native of Amritsar, claims to have constructed India’s first carbon-negative public restroom using four lakh bags of single-use plastic. The restroom is made entirely of recycled or recyclable materials. At the Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport in Amritsar, ‘Toilet 01’, also known as Swachh-Alyaa, was opened on Saturday by MP Gurjeet Aujla and airport director V K Seth.

The class 12 student from Jaipur’s Jayshree Periwal International School told The Indian Express that sustainability was the project’s main focus. I wanted to use eco-friendly bricks to construct the first building in India. A little over 30% of the brick used to construct the toilet is made of single-use plastic, with the remaining 70% being composed of garbage and silica dust.

‘Waste generation, particularly the single-use plastic that is strewn throughout our countryside, is a serious problem not just in India but around the world. This issue has simply become worse and worse every year. This toilet would be able to solve the issue, claimed Verma.’

She claimed that no natural resources, such as soil, silica, or water, were used in the production of the Silica Plastic Blocks (SPB). They are entirely constructed of garbage. The building’s materials can all be recycled, and no cement mortar was used in the construction. Verma noted that an SPB brick is three times stronger than a typical red clay brick. The complete toilet building was constructed using modules.

‘These (four lakh) plastic bags can stretch 150 kilometres if they are lined up. As this structure uses no water or cement to build a carbon-negative building, the concept of interlocking bricks, similar to Lego blocks, was used to bind them together, according to Verma, who plans to study sustainable architecture and develop more models to support the environment.’

‘ Since the parking area at Amritsar Airport needed restrooms, I reasoned that it would be the perfect location for this sustainable toilet project. I had assistance in making it happen from Ayush Periwal, the director of my school, and Shridhar Rao, a co-founder of SPB technology. I was also inspired to design this toilet by airport director V K Seth-ji,’ she said.