Corentin de Chateperron Nomade des Mers, à bord de Tara Tari le labo flottant de Low Tech Lab Corentin de Chateperron Nomade des mers, on board the Tara Tari the floating lab of Low Tech Lab. WHAT WE ARE LOVING RIGHT NOW: THE GLOBALISATION we really need them here in France! The following example was a great OF CORENTIN’S LOW-TECH INNOVATIONS success: a solar water-heater made from pieces of recycled fridges, At the age of 26, Corentin was more interested in jute fibre than he was namely the hermetic airtight doors and the black gridding found at the in sailing. Of course, he sometimes sailed with friends at the weekend, back of fridges. The concept is simple: after having followed all the steps but on board he was first and foremostly occupied with cutting up the for building this new low-tech device, you place it on the roof and it directly sausage for the starter… However, this young inventor, while studying in connects to the hot water tank. You therefore save 70% of the energy Bangladesh, got to work in finding new openings in the market for jute needed to heat water. fibre, the major resource of the country which was being used less and Categorically, what can low-tech bring to people like you and me? less since being replaced by synthetic fabrics. This led to the construc- Low-tech innovations can allow us to save money, to increase our under- tion of his boat (Tara Tari) made from jute fibre; he sailed the boat from standing of the objects that surround us (if you have made it, you know how Bangladesh to France because he wanted to prove that this natural to repair it) and above all, can considerably reduce our ecological footprint. material could be used as an excellent alternative to glass fibre in sail boats. A 6-month navigation period and 16,000 kilometres of adventure What we can we do to access low-tech inventions? changed his life forever. An engineer with a passion for the environment, Each time one of our teams repairs a low-tech system, they explain the ever since this unique achievement, Corentin de Chatelperron has been procedure in a tutorial video which is uploaded onto our website: www. sailing around the world in catamaran to promote the globalisation lowtechlab.org. 150,000 internet users have already seen these tutorials of these low-tech innovations. Low-tech innovations? What are they? in 10,000 cities across the world: it’s a very promising start! These videos Here’s what an expert had to say. allow individuals to recreate the object themselves with the help of the What exactly does ‘low-tech’ mean? tutorial, and even to advertise and market this low-tech system in their area to ensure that it is being used by a large majority of people. It’s the Good question! It refers to inventions which respond to a basic need and perfect opportunity to create an ethical local economy which respects the most useful innovations therefore grant access to water, energy and the environment and needs very little investment since all these technolo- food, while being accessible to everyone. In contrast to high-tech, you can gies are free from copyright. To prove that these low-tech innovations are adopt practices to manufacture these objects at home in whatever part accessible for everyone and to further promote them, our manufacturing of the world, without necessarily having highly advanced specialist skills team currently have a low-tech show house. Members of the organisation or a lot of money. Finally, these low-tech innovations are long-lasting and go to live there, try it out and carry out comprehensive studies on each of respect the environment. They aim to popularise these systems on a large the inventions to see if certain solutions can be combined to build a house scale for the good of the planet and its inhabitants. With some friends, which is economically accessible, and which reduces its ecological foot- we have noticed that plenty of inventors find tha these low-tech systemst print, at least by a quarter. respond to de-forestation problems, malnutrition and pollution in their area. They develop clever designs and techniques, but these are often I’ve got luxurious tastes and I love taking baths, do you have a low-tech limited to the local area when they could be used by millions of people! solution so that I can have a bath without feeling guilty and contrib- We are thereforecommitted to our mission of identifying and finding these uting to global warming? inventors and helping to further develop their ideas to make them known There is a solution! It’s the ‘close-loop’ shower. You take a shower, you wash to more people. To bring these low-tech systems out into the open, we as normal and afterwards you activate a valve. This causes the water to have fitted a boat in Concarneau with a floating laboratory and we sailed go through the inlet valve, to be filtered three times, to be heated up a little the seas for two and a half years. so it stays at the right temperature and then to come back through the What are the different projects that Low-Tech Lab are working on? shower head. So, you can have long showers using the same water and very little energy! This concept is also completely applicable to baths. Our first team researches jute fibre and has developed a resin which, contrary to the one I was using, is recyclable: the material is completely So, since you can have a little luxury and respect the planet at the same ‘green’. To encourage the industrial production of manufactured objects, time, there is noreason not to get on board this ecological craze and our team is therefore in the middle of building a car from jute fibre in Corentin’s low-tech innovations! Madagascar! Our second team has been touring around France for the To find out more about the low-tech and the super projects developed by past year, working to discover new low-tech French innovations because the Low-Tech Lab teams, head over to www.lowtechlab.org. 17