Guest post and photos by Chad Baldi, Project Engineer, ProSensing Inc.

Three of us from ProSensing recently made a trip to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea to perform some upgrades to two ARM radars. We made a few interesting discoveries.

In 2011, the ARM zenith cloud radar Ka-band antenna was replaced, and the old antenna was scrapped. As seen in the picture, the local villagers salvaged the scrapped antenna and are now using it to collect rain water for the community. The rain water drains off the roof of the house into the antenna, serving as a catch basin. When we told the property owner what a brand new antenna costs, he had a good laugh.

The other photo is a picture of wood-crafted shed. This is an office/study built by a local man using the materials from the wooden shipping crate that contained the new antenna. The crate provided enough material for him to construct the shed and some furniture inside. Talk about a new perspective on shipping crates!

Now that’s some creative recycling.