SHREYA RAMACHANDRAN
UNITED STATES, 16
Project: The Grey Water Project
Basic Human Needs: Water
When Shreya visited Tulare county in California, she was shocked to meet so many people who were forced to outsource water for basic needs like drinking or bathing. Shortly after, Shreya visited her grandparents in India, where she met many farmers who had lost their crops due to water scarcity. Shreya returned home and spent two years researching water conservation methods before officially forming The Grey Water Project (GWP) when she was 13 years-old. GWP promotes the safe reuse of grey water – the relatively clean water waste from household appliances – and general water conservation through outreach, advocacy and educational curricula. Four years later, GWP has directly engaged 10,000 people worldwide, and Shreya continues to advance her research on water preservation. In 2017, Shreya was awarded the President’s Environmental Youth Award and invited to become a member of the United Nation’s Global Waste Water Initiative. Her research received a grand award at the 2019 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and Shreya was named a Top 20 Global Finalist in the 2019 Google Science Fair. Shreya also received the 2019 Children’s Climate Prize, an international award given to one environmentalist each year. In November 2019, she launched an ambassador program, which already involved youth from India, Honduras and Sweden. As Student Commissioner for the Sustainability Commission in Fremont, California, Shreya has proposed to add grey water systems into the 2020 climate action plan and build mandatory grey water pipelines for all new construction in California. In the year ahead, Shreya plans to create additional policy proposals and expand her curriculum to more countries. Eventually, Shreya hopes water recycling will be a common practice worldwide.