“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”– Robin Williams
We all are well aware that change won’t just come about by sitting, and waiting for someone to take the first step on our behalf. When we read the above quotation, we felt the drive to walk on the path of bringing a change in our beloved city Karachi. As you may all be well aware of, waste has been a primary issue of Karachi, which has often been neglected. This motivation of ours, gave birth to an ideology, which we call EcoBin. The concept of EcoBin came to us when we started working on one of our university projects. So our group felt that it was necessary to educate the people on the importance of segregating your waste before disposal, hence we decided on making this project as our first start up business.
So what is an ideology? An ideology is a set of ideals, which gives the necessary motivation to bring about a permanent change in the way people think and act. It is a step in the right direction, for an everlasting looping effect creating a positive change in the overall cycle of how people perceive things. Which is why we consider EcoBin as an ideology, which will help our progenies to never sway off from the resolute mindset we are trying to create. Which is why we want people to understand that they need to “Think Globally, Act Locally.” We need to stop looking at each other, and what others are doing. Instead we should focus what we can do on our end to bring the slightest of changes that we can, for the start of every revolution is an unshakable ideology!
Quoting numbers would perhaps give a better picture of where are we heading, when we talk about waste management of our country. In Pakistan the annual waste production is around 20 million tons, with an annual growth rate of 2.4% in this figure. Karachi alone produces 20,000 tons of solid waste each day! If you do the math correctly that is about 36.5% of the total annual waste production amount of the nation itself. Why are we producing so much waste? What are we doing wrong when it comes to disposing waste? How can we turn this around? Those are some obvious questions that might be circling in our minds. The answer to all these questions lies in the form of this one short quote:
“Think Globally, Act Locally” – EcoBin
We kicked off our campaign starting from City School Gulshan Campus. The response we received from the school was simply phenomenal. We gave an introductory speech about the aims and goals of EcoBin, and how this ideology as a whole will bring about a change in Karachi, and in the future in all of Pakistan. The administration and students were very cooperative, which is why we were able to conduct a successful mannequin challenge with over a thousand participants! Followed by the challenge, we did a small art contest, which made the students realize how waste can be used smartly to produce works of art.
After our first efforts yielded such fruitful results, we decided to go public with our awareness campaign! We decided to step in to Port Grand, having a daily customer base of over ten thousand people! We interacted with individuals and families who showed keen interest in what EcoBin was all about. The feedback we received from these people was encouraging, as many of them agreed that there was an urgency to clean Karachi! Mr. Naveed Malik Head of Distribution at Dubai Islamic Bank had to say “This awareness campaign is a much needed campaign, since we are living in a city where people never think twice before throwing out any sort of trash outside their car window.” He was proud to see that we as the future generation of this amazing country were trying on our limited end to stir up a change in the mindset of the local people.
Our efforts paid off even more so, when we were all invited to KMC to explain our aims and goals as a new start up business. Upon reaching KMC we were greeted by the Director of Media Management Mr. Ali Hassan Sajid, with whom we discussed what we had been working on for the past few months. I still remember that all of us felt anxious, especially with the ease with which all things were happening. After we were done explaining, Mr. Ali told us to wait for a few minutes, which felt like an everlasting eternity. The door suddenly opened and we were then guided to office of the Mayor! The hospitable way with which Mr. Wasim greeted us seemed almost unreal to us, after all he is the Mayor of Karachi and a renowned political figure. We suddenly felt a surge of confidence running through us, and indulged ourselves in a long conversation with him about EcoBin. He encouraged us to not give up on our beliefs and continue striving forward towards our goal.
In order to bring about a change we will have to transform the way we think, reinvent a new ideology, an ideology that we know our progenies will carry forward with and not just shelf it off to bite the dust. Annually an average of 5 million people die from waste-related diseases in Pakistan. For this our government needs to declare serious national concern, and with the help of the civil society try to exterminate waste from our surroundings. The only way to prevent waterborne and airborne diseases we have to employ good and effective waste management disposal methods. We need to follow the R3 rule, which states that Reduce, Reuse and Recycle waste! EcoBin is the first step towards that change, which we all need to take in order to make Karachi and Pakistan clean and green again.
After reading this article, I hope that I have been able to convince you through both numbers and words the importance of being able to recycle the waste we produce. Stop thinking of when others will start, and start reducing; reusing and recycling the waste you are producing. Embrace change!
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw
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