Takachar of India has won the Clean Our Air award during the first Earthshot Prize awards ceremony at Alexandra Palace in London. (AP)

Meena Janardhan

Projects from India, Costa Rica, Italy, and the Bahamas picked up the inaugural Earthshot prizes at a ceremony in London last week. Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson Prince William presented the new annual awards, which were created by him to reward efforts to save the planet in the face of climate change and global warming. Five winners were announced, each receiving a million pounds ($1.4 million).

Indian company Takachar won the “Clean our Air” prize for the creation of a portable machine which turns agricultural waste into fertilizer so that farmers do not burn the waste and cause air pollution.

The Earthshot Prize has highlighted the work of Takachar on the international stage, said the company’s co-founder and CEO Vidyut Mohan, as reported by the Print. Delhi-based entrepreneur Vidyut Mohan, a 29-year-old engineer, grew up facing the effects of the deadly smog caused by stubble burning. Takachar, also based in Delhi, has developed technology that converts agricultural waste biomass into usable fuel and fertilizer. The technology that reduces smoke emissions by up to 98% aimed at helping improve the air quality that currently reduces the affected population’s life expectancy by up to five years. Takachar went head to head with another Indian finalist in the category — 14-year-old Tamil Nadu schoolgirl Vinisha Umashankar’s solar-powered ironing cart project.

The other winners included Coral Vita, from the Bahamas, for a project to grow coral in tanks, 50 times quick than coral normally grows. The northern Italian city of Milan won the “Food Waste Hubs” award for collecting unused food and giving it to people who need it most. The Republic of Costa Rica was one of the winners on Sunday picking up the “Protect and Restore Nature” award for its efforts to protect forests, plant trees and restore ecosystems. The “Fix our Climate” laureate went to a joint Thai-German-Italian team for the AEM Electrolyzer, which uses renewable energy to make clean hydrogen by splitting water into its constituent elements.

Takachar states on its website that it is on a mission to fight climate change by transforming massive amounts of waste biomass into marketable products around the world. Worldwide, $120 billion worth of crop and forest residues are burned in the open each year. If used productively, these residues represent a $10 billion market globally. Takachar’s process can be a profitable way to make economic use of this biomass, while reducing air pollution. Using a novel concept called ‘oxygen-lean torrefaction’, Takachar has developed and patented the design of small-scale, low-cost, portable equipment to convert waste biomass into solid fuel, fertilizer, and other specialty chemicals.

Torrefaction is the process of removing moisture and volatiles from biomass, leaving bio-coal. Using torrefaction reactors, Takachar turns small pockets of biomass into products that can be further used in agriculture. Compared to the process of sending waste biomass to centralized conversion facilities, Takachar’s system is more profitable by significantly reducing the logistics cost of hauling loose, wet, and bulky biomass. The company buys rice husks, straw and coconut shells from farmers and turns them into charcoal. Since it was launched in 2018, Mohan and co-founder Kevin Kung have worked with about 4500 farmers and processed 3000 tonnes of crops.

Takachar’s work impacts the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): (i) SDG12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) — eliminate fossil based sources to produce fuels, fertilizers and specialty chemicals and eliminate more than 95% of smoke compared to open biomass burning or biomass induced wildfires; (ii) SDG 13 (Climate Action) — mitigate 700 million tons/year of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 2030; and SDGs 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and 1 (No Poverty) — increase the net income of rural communities by 40% by creating a market for crop residues.

The Earthshot Prize, launched in October last year, was inspired by US president John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” project in the 1960s to put a man on the moon. It covers five areas: how to protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate.

Each winner was awarded a one-of-a-kind prize medal, designed by award-winning Dutch artist Christien Meindertsma, inspired by the iconic Earthrise photo taken of the earth from space from the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 and created from recycled materials. The finalists – chosen by experts from more than 750 nominations — will be given help from companies to develop their projects. Prince William announced that the 2022 edition of the Earthshot Prize will be held in the United States.