Man motivates people to manage waste - Fusion - WeRIndia

Normally people ignore the waste after its disposal. Nobody cares about waste management even if waste piles on the streets. Here is a story of a young man who inspires the world to manage waste effectively.

Jabir Karat hailed from a small village in Kerala and finished his school studies in government school. He was not good in speaking English and in his academics. When he went to Delhi University after his graduation, he felt that he was not good enough and there is a need to change.

While doing Ph.D., he wanted to do something more actionable to change the lives of people in the society which was ignored by most research scholars. Later, he was selected for Gandhi Fellowship for a two-year residential programme in Mumbai. He says that it was the best time in his life since it changed his entire thought process. He was exposed to all kinds of realities which inspired him to choose a meaningful career and become a social entrepreneur.

After thoroughly researching the country’s problems, he wanted to focus on waste management. He worked as a rag-picker for three months to get experience in a solid and liquid resource management company. As a rag-picker, his duty is to collect trash every morning and send the biodegradable waste for composting after segregating it.

Later, he started Green Worms in a small town of Kerala with a team of three members.  After establishing a composting unit and leasing a place for segregating waste, his biggest challenge was to convince the local shopkeepers to dispose their waste responsibly rather than dumping the garbage on roads. It was a tough task as shopkeepers feel that the service fee they are paying to Green Worms is more than the money they are paying earlier for irresponsible dumping.

But, he did not leave his efforts. He says that his business unit can pick 900 kg recyclable waste from 1,000 kg of waste. He conducted waste literacy programmes in schools. His team is succeeded in convincing people to manage waste efficiently in huge events like weddings and other get-togethers.  Now, many people are calling him to manage their waste. Jabir now wants to scale his model to establish sustainable waste management practices in his state.

Image Reference: TheBetterIndia