SE Valley Times

The jagged peaks in Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains National Park are home to the rare gelada monkey, the only place in the world where these endangered animals can be found. The terrain is rugged, with high plateaus, dramatic cliffs, and deep drops. Over time, the park has been polluted by plastic water bottles discarded by tourists each year, which are then picked up by the primates.

This issue drew India Schneider-Crease, Tyler Eglen, and the Arizona State University chapter of Engineers Without Borders to Ethiopia this summer. Schneider-Crease is co-director of the Simien Mountains Gelada Research Project and Eglen is a project manager at ASU’s Circular Living Lab. They led a team of nine ASU students on a two-week journey to tackle the plastic problem threatening not only monkeys but also other rare species such as Ethiopian wolves and walia ibex.

“Our ultimate goal is to protect the area’s fragile ecosystem and endangered and endemic wildlife while providing pathways for local residents to profit from those ecosystems,” said Schneider-Crease, assistant professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. “We have been building up to this since we started the project in 2020.”

Schneider-Crease has spent more than a decade studying gelada monkeys at a long-term field site in the national park. She leads a student-driven plastic recycling project in the area.

The ASU team collaborated with Addis Ababa Institute of Technology and Gizish Industries in Ethiopia to build technology addressing plastic pollution and sustainable partnerships with the Ethiopian community. The long-term plan involves transforming discarded plastic bottles into products that can be sold locally and to tourists for profit.

The team arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, to build two customized machines they had prototyped over two years at ASU—one designed to shred plastic gathered from the park and another an injection molder made to transform shredded plastic into marketable products.

Kaleb Tefera, an Ethiopian-born computer science student from Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, was responsible for securing locally sourced materials needed for building these machines. “That was pretty intense,” he said. “It’s not like we had an Amazon where we could go and order everything.”

Once they had materials, other difficulties arose such as limited tools and power outages coupled with metalworking challenges. Kathleen Myers-Haeussler noted that they had to recreate missing parts necessary for machine operation: “So that was a bit of a challenge... But at the same time, that's what engineering is all about — finding creative ways to get past problems.”

Eglen emphasized that opportunities provided by this trip were unlike anything available during standard undergraduate engineering classes: "What do you do when real-world presents you with very complex problems that can’t be predicted from classroom comfort? You engineer new solutions."

Beyond engineering education, students also gained cultural insights through local cuisine experiences like doro wat (spicy chicken stew) and visits such as one to National Museum of Ethiopia housing Lucy's fossil skeleton discovered by current ASU Professor Donald Johanson.

Despite setbacks during their building process putting them behind schedule until just minutes before departure when machines finally ran successfully; students appreciated resilience learned throughout their journey—a sentiment echoed by Antrasian who described it as both exciting & educationally enriching experience offered via ASU initiatives enabling future returns continuing collaborative efforts between American-Ethiopian student engineers fostering mutual learning friendships across borders underscored by Schneider-Crease expressing satisfaction witnessing her students' growth abroad despite struggles faced along way ultimately deeming entire endeavor worthwhile overall achievement reached under pressure circumstances concluding on positive note reflecting broader goals pursued within larger context involved here