Awesome New Ideas For A Better Tomorrow (2) - Wasteplus.in
Life-saving gadgets, safer ways to travel, solutions for sanitation and cost-effective answers to everyday problems… India has a host of good ideas just waiting to explode. See what’s bubbling under
We
scouted the length and breadth of the country to find the brightest
innovations. The list continues
2. A Site That Rewards You For Your Trash
BRAINCHILD
OF: Shahbaz Shamsi
Architecture
student Shahbaz Shamsi knew that if he had to get people to care
about their trash, he had to offer them a reward. “It’s all
about motivation,” he says, laughing. And so he started
Wasteplus.in.
The
premise is simple: for every two kgs of trash you give the Wasteplus
employees who come to your doorstep to collect it, you earn 1 point.
Collect points, exchange them for gifts. 100 points can get you a
mixer-grinder, and other incentives include hot plates and
groceries.
Shamsi
then recycles the trash – 500 plastic bottles are turned into yarn,
mixed with polyester and sold to cloth companies. The profit made
from the recycling process is then used to fund the rewards for
Wasteplus. Shamsi has also employed ragpickers from the streets to
segregate the waste collected, and says, “This is a way to empower
the ragpickers, as they now have a legitimate job.”
Since
their pilot project launched in Mumbai in October this year, Shamsi
has 1,000 families onboard and has collected 4,000 kilos of waste.
That’s a whole lot of garbage not being tossed out the window into
the street.
“We
are funding this through the profits we get after recycling the waste
and we plan to cover all of Mumbai,” says Shamsi. You can check out
the rewards and enroll for the programme on their website,
Wasteplus.in.
HTBR141130
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