TP's Chemical Engineering students won top awards in an environmental-themed competition held by Tampines GRC in conjunction with Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim's visit to the ward on April 15.  

There were two categories in the competition: "Recycled Creative Work" and "Recycling Bin Design". The "Recycled Creative Work" category gives free play to participants' creativity. Entries can be works of art or useful products as long as they are made with waste or discarded materials. TP's entry for this category, entitled "Generating of Electricity Using Industrial/Household Waste", won the first prize of $200 and a trophy. In the "Recycling Bin Design" category, where participants were tasked to design creative recycling bins, TP students clinched the second prize of $100 and a trophy with their entry "Basketball Recycle Bin".

Using industrial and household waste materials such as the zinc metal casings of used batteries, waste paper bowls, waste sulphuric acid and waste copper sulphate, the "Generating of Electricity Using Industrial/Household Waste" team was able to create a battery which generated electricity capable of powering simple appliances.

So how did they come up with the idea of using waste materials to generate electricity? Third year Chemical Engineering student, Ang Shiong Hui, revealed, "My parents had been complaining about the ever increasing PUB bills. At the same time, we noticed many household and industrial wastes are discarded without respect to their ‘potential'. It struck us that we could bring these two classes of wastes together and explore the benefits that we can extract from them."

Another third year Chemical Engineering student, Grace Soh Ziwei, summed up both teams' feelings on winning the competition, "It was exhilarating.I have never shaken the hand of a minister before! It is extremely gratifying to do something that we believe in and be recognised for it."  

The prizes were presented to the students by Dr Yaacob, who was so pleased with the project on "Generating of Electricity Using Industrial/Household Waste" that he told Grace to consider a career with his ministry when she graduates.