Dr. Anura Ratnayake felicitated for inventing ‘Content Thread’

The ‘Supporters for Innovations’ recently felicitated Avant Garde Scientist Dr. Anura Ratnayake who won third place at the ‘Global Change Award 2017’ organized by the H&M Foundation in Sweden recently for his revolutionary innovation,‘content Thread’.

A special memento was awarded to Dr. Rathnayake by Megapolis and Western Development Minister Champika Ranawaka in recognition of his exceptional achievement carrying Sri Lanka’s name to the international platform.

Dr. Ratnayake who was a student of the Moratuwa University Moratuwa the prize for the ‘Content Thread’ which facilitates sorting and recycling of clothes using a digital thread.

Born in a remote village of Nikawewa in Welioya, he developed his concept and competed against some 3,000 technological concepts presented by 130 countries including the USA, Britain, Japan and Australia.

Dr. Ratnayake’s concept addresses one of the major barriers in global textile recycling, which does not know what the clothes are made of.

“At the end of the life cycle, the most natural ingredients used for manufacturing textile will be thrown into the waste system making the textile industry the second biggest contributor to pollution. When a garment is sorted incorrectly in the recycling process it can obstruct the whole recycling system therefore it has become an expensive and difficult task,” he said.

All information needed to recycle the garment are created by attaching a digital tag to each garment in the manufacturing stage.

The tag which is in the form of an RFID thread looks and feels much like a normal thread and lasts over the cloth’s lifetime, driving economic improvements that reduce waste throughout the entire supply chain, and powering the recycling process at end of life.

‘Supporters for Innovations’ Chief Organiser Sisira Wijesinghe said, the ‘Content Thread’ would save precious natural resources, helping reinvent and speed up the shift to a circular waste-free fashion industry and could be used in a wide range of fields such as medical, automotive, military and naval. PIC BY WARUNA WANNIARACHCHI