Watching the homeless braving extreme weather, sleeping by the roadside is a sad reality in
cities which begs for a solution. Some people do their bit to address the issue like this
Bachelor of Design student, Shreya Mehta, who has built environment-friendly sleeping bags
for the homeless living on the roads. These intend to provide protection from the elements,
are sustainable and made from waste.
With an aim to provide the poor relief from searing hot, biting cold or wet surfaces of roads,
Shreya is working alongside an initiative called Green Practices run by Mana, apart from IIT
Mumbai faculty Prof B K Chakravarthy and associate professor at Anant National University,
Milind Chitale.Shreya is a 4th year Product Design student at Anant National University in
Ahmedabad. Her project called ‘Kavach’ is designed mainly keeping Mumbai weather in mind,
but she is hopeful of making sleeping bags for the homeless in other cities, including
Ahmedabad.
“This design is part of the thesis project at ANU. Shreya she got in touch with Green Practices
on her own, and I mentored her on the project to make it work at many levels,” said Prof
Chitale.
“The project I worked with has a tie-up with industrial units around Mumbai. The sleeping bag
— 6 feet x 2.5 feet — is made of waste or scrap materials like foam used by companies making
bullet-proof vests for police, T-shirt and textile waste from textile firms, jute, plastic or tatpatri material or blanket material to make bag rolls,” Shreya said.
She will design the items with generous use of the product. The price of bag rolls will vary as
per the scrap raw material used. “These bags are made of material suitable for Mumbai.
Foam cannot be used in Ahmedabad because of hot weather. By working with factories in
Ahmedabad, I would like to work on the project for homeless people in Ahmedabad,” she
said.
4 layers for insulation, comfort
The sleeping bag is made up of foam stripes stitched together in 4 layers. The first layer is
tarpaulin used for its strength and watet-proofing ability to protect from rain. The second
layer is a thin cotton or fibre mattress, stitched to give comfort. The third layer of the bag is
a blanket sheet to keep away cold, and the final sheet is padded tarpaulin to hold the other
layers in place. Also, there is extra layering for protection against extreme weather
Story Source: https://ahmedabadmirror.com/state-student-designs-sleeping-bags-for-homeless/81825460.html