The Da Vinci Programme offers different challenges to choose from for both tracks

Biodigester – turning trash into treasure

Does heating your house and charging your phone with banana peels, apple cores, or egg shells sound like magic to your ears? This can actually happen in a nearby future, but to achieve this, we will need your help!

Biodigesters, containers in which micro-organisms convert organic waste into biogas, are already used on a large scale in the agricultural sector to provide energy. However, small biodigesters to heat, for example your own house, are not used yet as this comes with many new challenges. Recently, the company Circ installed a small biodigester at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht to answer the technological, sociological, and legislative questions associated with implementing this innovation in the real world.

Currently, the biodigester is only used to turn waste from the University of Applied Sciences into energy, but at Utrecht Science Park (USP), 400 kg of waste is available on a daily basis. In this challenge, you and your team will figure out what is required from a legislative, economic, technological, and logistic point of view to build an attractive business case to turn USP trash into treasure.

REACT – A dive into the world of counterfeit goods

Have you ever wondered what happens to the fake handbags, sunglasses, and shoes that are confiscated at the border? While these goods can still be used, they are usually incinerated, potentially causing unnecessary pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The non-profit organization React has over 30 years of experience combatting counterfeit goods, aiming to make anti-counterfeiting actions affordable. The React Sustains program aims to dismantle the confiscated counterfeit goods, and reuse components instead of incinerating everything, which ultimately results in lower CO₂ emissions.

However, it is not clear what the exact environmental benefit is as not all components of a delivery can be reused. For example, when a delivery of 1000 kg of perfume is intercepted, it could be the case that the heaviest component (e.g., 600 kg of glass) can be reused, whereas the 200 kg of perfume has to be incinerated as it does not adhere to European guidelines. The remaining 150 kg of cardboard, paper (from the packaging), and 50 kg of plastics could be recycled, but depending on the type of recycling, the CO₂ impact could vary. React Sustains would like insights into the CO₂ savings in such a case, which is where your team comes in!

In this challenge, you will develop a tool which React can use to calculate the impact of their work. This model can be approached from an economic, environmental, and scientific point of view. All in all, you can directly help React and the environment with the product you make!