How mattresses could solve hunger - BBC News

10,000

mattresses

, a warehouse full and we don't know what to do with them. Nothing is thrown away. A Saturn refugee camp in Jordan. About 80,000 people live here. This is essentially a city that emerged in a very short period of time. They are so small and the ground is very salty and we don't have enough water. It's about giving people the ability and resources to grow food. It turns out that what they thought was a problem with

mattresses

that simply stacked was the shape. make everyone have their own garden in the refugee camp polyurethane foam mattresses by Tony Ryan I'm a chemistry professor at the University of Sheffield they have to be disposed of somehow there was no disposal mechanism and I decide that a PhD student is working on how to grow things in polyurethane foam, so I sent the most excited text home.

I know exactly what we can do. We will be able to grow things everywhere. We will be able to turn these beds into green beds and everyone will be able to have their own garden I was in a landfill and I saw a tomato plant growing on an old sofa yes, yes, yes, and that's why I found out at work, let's say we are under the Kappa at the University of Sheffield, there's some foam in a box where you can create any atmospheric condition and any temperature any climate local farmers have taught us a lot about growing things hydroponic lip the company just keeps the plant bright for you to do let the water do the work where all the other functions of the soil come from the nutrients in the water you can use 20% of the water that you would use to grow something in the soil because the water does not escape, it stays where it is needed.

The challenge is if you are a farmer who is used to growing things. in the soil it leads us to grow things in ways a big question, hey, he was accepted by a strawberry, he went and made it work, then he became the ultimate defender because he is a Syrian farmer and the other Syrian farmers believed him. Wow, he's taking us. for hydroponics, my mom is on my side, they call you the green-handed man, can you tell me why that's a good ringtone? Aah, we manage the nerve and its medium, gifts, notes, a sign under what the camera can be enough, authority problems, whatever is out there.

Me on the horn Adam who am I Who am I Basava Padgett left a doctor my lawyer Wow Charlie and Sarah I'll marry a jerk for them man ma catcher how many the only one in the calm I just spoke to you in Lahore knee Annie why should I have done it no I do it under mode you make me Miami it happens it's like a base this is one of them just one of the floors and it was whole I don't even know how many there are here hundreds and all the coffee cooks a little foam there's the old mattress and that's just it appears there so you can get all your nutrients.

It's incredible, everything is recycled. My name is Moira Lana Ania. I am here for the University of Shaking Refugees. Today we are going to teach a new group of people about hydroponics and we are going to apply it with them so that they know how to perfectly use light at home. Have you seen people react when you mention an old woman who spent her entire life farming? It's hard to convince them. that this idea really exists, but now when they see that they are so excited to try it with the approval, everyone gets a kind of starter kit and checks it out, it is spreading so fast and everyone is so interested that they used to grow one a lot in Syria and they are looking forward to having it again labissiere around Israel aha, anything else I texted what are your favorite things about this project, having the old ladies happy to have their home green again and feeling so comfortable and comfortable teaching something new. so that the new generation has its sustainability in the future in case something bad happens, more than a thousand people have learned this technique now, so we are on our way to meet someone who is now growing hydroponically at home for you.

I am friend. bottles It

could

be my face to face Very good to meet you It seems the garden has made this a more real home. It's fair to say how much pleasure you get from growing flowers and vegetables. I never miss it. beyond what they call me longing for a boy named Almond Sateen that the fountain I think let me massage hot - it's a very colorful facade three oh wow your house is full of beautiful green things it looks beautiful I mean, it's a garden complete oh God and he doesn't like that we have learned so much in Sheffield in our investigation of what has been happening here as the people here have learned from us, we just gave them one thing and then they made it flourish, forgive.

The pun is that there are so many things that have benefited all the research that we do, we will learn from here that in a suboptimal environment to optimize high yield and low water use and low nutrient use and low energy use, you mean what's being made here with old mattresses

could

be some kind of innovative step for urban agriculture around the world, yes, and if you can make it work here, you can make it work. I think there are many things that anyone who lives in an urban environment can learn. This project is about taking value from things that can be reused and recycled and making the most of a very limited space and really limited resources and as urban environments face a changing climate and those limited resources in the future, that is one reality that we are all going to have to face it, so this is a lunch at the factory, that salad was grown in the hydroponic garden, you were OB, a professor, how important is this job and in the context of that whole career, I think that every time I look What I will remember most is this.

I've done all kinds of things in my life. I have worked in synchrotrons. The neutron scattering facilities have been at CERN, but what I think I will treasure for the rest. of my life is the difference we have been able to make in people's lives with a little science and a lot of local ingenuity.