Innovativeness of solutions selected

1) Upside down planting:

Upside down planting originates from a school experiment overseas dating from 10 years ago. It has from then been adopted as a mainstream way of growing crops both commercially and from individuals. The main idea behind it is the use of gravity to prevent plants from undergoing excessive growth and thus flowering and producing fruits faster than conventional agricultural methods. One another main advantage of upside-down farming is the effectiveness in delivery of nutrients straight to the roots without any loss.

Advantages of upside-down planting:

Source: Suviopedia.com

 reduces the need for weeding, pest and insect protection,  provides a flexible growth space  allows for easier maintenance  and has faster yield rates as compared to traditional methods.  enables the planters to upsell their produce and maximising their resources.

We proposed to implement the upside-down planting method while working with local farmers by having a 30:70 mix of soil and compost. Our target was to grow bio tomato plants, chilli plants and strawberries for the initial trial phase that could easily last three harvesting phases.

2) Recycling of Plastics:

As a taxonomic effect we also decided to include the recycling of plastics as an integral part of our solution. As from a survey made in 2016, Mauritius only recycles around 6.25% of its plastic waste as compared to UK where 44.3% of household plastic waste is recycled. Below is the chart categorising the types of plastic used and if they are recyclable or not. To note that in Mauritius currently only PET plastic bottles are being collected for future recycling.

In this endeavour, we evaluated the potential plastic wastes (especially hard plastics as polyethylene) that were in form of containers or bucket shape that could be recycled. We found that paint buckets, food containers such as for yoghurt and ice cream and also plastic crates used in fruit pallets could be used alongside our solutions proposed.

Source: SLRecycling.co.uk

3) Live fine herb trays and bouquets

Another solution we came up with was to recycle the plastic trays used in fruit pallets to produce live fine herb trays that could sustain consumption for 2 weeks relying on a 50-50 mix of soil and compost. A sketch of the prototype and its main ideas as well as the picture of the final outcome is shown below.