Green firewood may quell fury over fire

With the Capital's air quality showing no signs of improving, people have taken to burning firewood or tyres to keep themselves warm at night, something that only worsens the pollution. However, one teenaged boy claims to have the perfect solution; he has come up with eco-friendly logs made of wax and sawdust, which people can burn on cold nights and not run the risk of air pollution either.

Eighteen-year-old Abhinav Agarwal says he had been researching possible alternatives to rubber when he noticed that people in foreign countries use eco-friendly alternatives. "Mixing wax and sawdust in an appropriate ration will provide one with the solution. But the challenge is to ensure these logs don't cost much, so people, especially the poor people who burn cheap rubber, can make the switch," Agarwal says.

Agarwal, who aspires to be an engineer in the future, says he contacted churches and other places which use wax in large quantities. For sawdust, he contacted furniture markets near his house. "If churches gave me wax and furniture shops helped with sawdust, I could make the logs for no cost at all," he says. "The only cost I incurred were in the form of heating the wax and mixing the composition, but that's negligible when you look at the benefits they have."

In fact, he says, the biggest challenge is in persuading people to make the switch. It required a few rounds of persuasion and briefing people on the adverse effects of wood and plastic before they decided to give these logs a try.

Less-polluting alternative

• The ‘logs’ are made of was and sawdust that emit less fumes. They can be used to generate heat on cold nights
• Currently, poor people burn cheap rubber, plastics and keep themselves warm. However, it creates too much of noxious smoke