POP Projects

The dehydrator with solar oven developed in this initiative, is low cost and aimed at families with low income resources. The model is characterized by self-supply and allows natural cooking of food, making it last longer, and thereby becoming advantageous for communities living in poverty and extreme poverty. This project also supports social entrepreneurship.

This project presents a comprehensive model for the reforestation of an important ecosystem located in the area of Chanal, Chiapas through the creation of a permaculture center, in which 6 species of native trees are produced and recovered with a specific purpose.

This project aims to maintain and conserve forest areas and religiously important areas, by collecting and managing waste and preventing pollution. It also encourages environmental education in the municipality through the participation of key people.

This research seeks to develop a system of capture and recovery of CO2, that is transformed into production utilities with aqueous solutions. (The burning of fossil fuels in México has reached a proportion equivalent to 3.87 metric tons of CO2 per individual per year. Dealing with emissions from chimneys is one among the many possible ways to reduce this statistic.) By employing a monitored experiment and a follow-up of the designed process, the project’s viability will be determined by percentages of the reaction performance. If it is found suitable for industrial use, the
process could be redesigned and techniques could be employed to handle semi-industrial and industrial volumes.

The POP Germany team considers it necessary to closely observe the carbon footprint of the students and teachers in order to enable the students to create a more climate-friendly environment. The commuting habits of all the students and teachers were studied to and from school, and data on energy consumption was evaluated, resulting from the use of electricity, heating and also from the amount of waste that needed to be combusted. Since a high amount of photocopying paper is used at the school, the amount of CO 2 resulting from the process of producing the paper was also taken into account.

On the basis of the comprehensive data that was obtained, the annual rate of CO2 emission in school has been calculated, which will serve as a reference value to prove whether the project’s future measures will prove successful.

This study aims to measure CO2 emissions from bicycle, school bus and parental taxi. The students leading this study focused on measuring who causes more CO2, and compared the results for improvement.

This study focussed on measuring water expenditure in school bathrooms and studying people’s behavior with regard to its usage.

A modern toilet built with automatic water faucets as part of the renovations in school infrastructure pointed to an unsettling fact. It was found that the faucets were running for a long time even after the students washed their hands, for an average of 35 seconds. A two-week study was conducted on the students’ behavior of washing their hands. The team not only compared the time that
the taps ran water with the time that students needed to wash their hands, but it also additionally found out how often the taps were used and how many liters of fresh drinking water just flowed into the sink. It was discovered that, each day 600 liters of fresh drinking water is being wasted without having served any purpose at all.

The issue, backed by data was taken up with the city council and permission was obtained to reduce the water limit to 12 seconds.

Through this initiative, the school was able to switch from fresh fiber paper to recycled copy paper. Since the annual consumption of paper in the school is around 800,000 sheets, this conversion to recycled paper is projected to reduce the annual CO 2 emissions by 2.6 tonnes.

This project seeks to raise awareness among the school community on the concrete consequences of practices like getting to school either by using a car for oneself or being dropped off by parents, and for covering short distances. A weight-model was built by the students that calculates the amount of carbon dioxide produced by their commuting habits, and makes the impacts more tangible and easier to grasp.

For example, the students were led to create a weight situation to measure their CO 2 emissions in a week, a month and a whole school year.

This hands-on methodological approach serves to create a more long-term awareness – in contrast to just presenting the facts and figures.