The Social Justice + Engineering Initiative

As champions for social and environmental justice, our mission is straightforward: to bridge resources with innovation and to engineer solutions that target the meaningful involvement of people for the common good.

Our organization seeks to research, develop, and implement engineering practices, designs, products, and methods that promote social and environmental justice and overall sustainability. Further, we strive to educate, advocate, plan and engineer the future development of our cities, towns, neighborhoods, farms - our planet. We will obtain our goals in a way that is respectful and sensitive, and in a manner that treats all inhabitants equally and fairly according to the definitions of social justice, environmental justice, and the ethical principles adhered to by engineers.

SJEI Greywater System

As soon as you think about building a house in Arizona or anywhere for that matter, it becomes apparent that water is a major issue. Large parts of Phoenix for example are subsiding because humans are drawing water from the aquifers underground faster than they can be recharged. In fact this is the case in many parts of the world.

One of the easiest, cheapest, and common-sense solutions to this issue is to use less clean drinking water for uses that don't require it. Since it seems far less likely that the grass, palm trees, and gardens will be a thing of the past, we can do this by creating LESS black water. Greywater systems use the water that comes out of your bathroom sink and shower, and any other used water in your household that does not have fecal or food matter.

Our goal is to design and build a highly technical and efficient household greywater system with a user interface to be installed generally on new homes, starting out local (Arizona) and expanding after proof of concept and design has been completed.
Successfully completing this phase of the project will the allow us to pay if forward and design and install more basic but efficient greywater systems on homes throughout Phoenix and Arizona at a low cost to marginalized communities, eliminating upwards of 50% of what would otherwise be blackwater and reusing the water outdoors instead of using even more clean water outside. We could drastically reduce water consumption in the Phoenix area, whilst saving people money on their water bills. Further, we could teach the builders in the area to build these systems, and maybe provide a monetary incentive for a period, to keep the project going. The water table could also possibly be recharged by our efforts. Other pay it forward options include other social and environmental justice causes that align with our organization and meet needs of marginalized communities here in Phoenix and Arizona.

SJEI Lesson Plan

We are working to implement a 2 hour lesson plan and activity that can be downloaded and used by schools explaining the importance of social and environmental justice in engineering to children while providing teaching notes and a class activity. We want to make this available to a worldwide audience. It will bring awareness to what we are working towards. We are seeking volunteers and researchers to help with this project. We will seek cooperation and alignment with schools, school boards and local authorities to ensure that it will complement and enhance existing curriculums and gain official recognition as a resource.