Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960209004539.29897A-100000@qlink> Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 01:11:10 -0500 From: Cook Richard A <mailto:3rac5@QLINK.QUEENSU.CA> Subject: Using coconut fibers to manufacture coil-matresses To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Does anyone know anything about a technology which employs coconut fibers to produce coil-spring matresses? Or a potential source of such information?Queen's Project on International Development (QPID) is a student run grassroots development organization which operates through the Engineering Society at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. QPID sends students to Guyana and Bolivia, and now to First Nations communities within Canada each summer to work on engineering and education projects. All QPID's efforts are in conjunction with Guyanese and Bolivian partners, and work to compliment the long term goals of development organizations permanently in these countries.
This project we are participating in currently is in conjunction with the Guyana Volunteer Consultancy (GVC), which is a Guyanese offshoot of CESO. The transfer of the coconut technology to community members for microenterprise development is the focus of QPID's work with the GVC. The coconut fiber technology has been used in Guyana before. Our primary contact with the GVC made 10 matresses using the coconut fiber coil-spring technology. QPID is focusing research efforts on several aspects of the technology, in hopes of improving the technology, the product quality and the time and capital investment required. For example, the present technology employs a balata latex which is harvested locally. However, the balata is perishable, and may be difficult to obtain a constant supply. Is there a method of preservation, or a synthetic substitute which is cheap and locally available. This is the sort of thing we are researching.
Any assistance or direction to complement our own information search would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Richard Cook mailto:3rac5@qlink.queensu.ca Director, QPID Guyana
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Queen's Project on International Development Engineering Society, Clark Hall Queen's University, Kingston, ON CANADA K7L 3N6 ph (613) 545-6845 fax 545-6678
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