There was a stretch of land which was filled with waste
and like anybody, you want to clean it up.
We cleaned it up.
But then the waste reappeared.
Nobody is really interested to change overnight.
Even if people segregate, there is no way to recycle it.
There is no infrastructure available.
So there are multiple broken pieces of this.
How do we solve this problem that's going to kill our future generations, literally.
The problem is huge.
Mom.
How was the day?
It was good.
Tiring.
How about having a cup of coffee?
Or tea? I made ginger tea.
Chai, chai, ginger chai.
Ginger chai is okay for you?
Your favourite, ginger chai?
Yes.
Okay.
We're talking about 200,000 tonnes of waste in India every day.
People don't segregate their waste.
When they don't segregate, you can't create value
and hence it has to go to the landfills.
We don't have any more land left.
So of course it ends up in front of your houses.
And what I realised is, there is no solution that is actually solving the problem,
which is like, say, a big plastic bag with food and glass and everything mixed into it.
That's why it's on the streets day and night.
There are kids dying because of respiratory cancer
because the landfills are burgeoning and then they burn.
And then there is leachate, thick black liquid,
that has already percolated into the groundwater.
And residents in and around are literally having such water to drink.
When people are dying already,
we think that we are very far away from it.
But it's not.
And that's when I realised that there needs to be a solution first to sort the trash.
Because the moment I do that, then the degradables could be recycled.
And during that journey, the initial few months is when I met my co-founder, Saurabh.
So I would see her, you know, going from her house,
which was about 40 kilometres from the place where she was testing the machine.
She was walking for a while, taking a bus,
then taking a metro, again getting down, taking a cab, and reaching that place.
And she was doing this every single day.
When I was first making my small prototype, I was going to the landfills
I used to go there and put waste into my machine.
And it was just not working. It was just not working.
In fact, the machine broke down.
And I had exhausted all my money.
And I said I want to give up.
This was I think when she was in third grade, yeah.
She was the angel.
She's coming all the way from heaven
to tell the human beings on Earth about how horrible you people are.
You are so insensitive, you don't value life, all these things.
Her happy place is the stage.
That I think is her gift.
That's Nivedha.
She always thinks that,
‘I want to change the lives of, not few people,'
'billions and billions of people.'
'I want to change their lives. I want to make them better.'
As any start-ups, it's not easy to get the money or support.
So she has asked me, "Mom,"
"I don't have others to finance me. What should I do?"
So all the money which I saved, these are all the money for you.
However much you want, you take it. I'm not going to take a penny out of it.
Use it for your business.
"What if I fail?"
Failing is not a problem.
Go back to zero.
That's a wonderful number, you know, that zero.
Because that, from there on, everything starts.
I told her, ”See, don't give up, you're doing a great work”
“and it will benefit the society a lot.”
Frankly, I didn't have any idea about what I was saying.
And she said, “Come on the ground and show it to me." You know.
"You will not be even able to stand in such a place.”
The following day, I went there.
I could see babies there in the lap of those women
who were removing plastics and paper.
And I really felt horrified, you know?
How can somebody work in this situation?
When we were working in the dumpsites,
we could feel what the waste picker is going through.
Because if we don't do this, billions of people have to do this.
They have to live in waste.
This is the first Trashbot.
This was 50 kgs an hour. 50.
It never worked. It broke.
It was absolutely the reverse.
Wet fell in dry, dry fell in wet.
I don't know what were we on, I mean,
what made us think that we could crack it?
Something kept us going, and we could never give up on the mission.
The worst part is you're nauseated, right?
You want to puke, but you have to think of a problem that's impossible to solve.
You can think when you are in an air-conditioned room
or when you are in a laboratory
but thinking in a dumpsite, in a landfill, where it's nauseating
and figuring out the solution,
and not just figuring out, it’s not like ‘yay I got an idea’ and it's done.
You have to fix it. You have to prototype. You have to try it there
because you can't come back and try because it's very far away, every landfill.
No food because there's nothing available.
Nowhere to pee, especially for me.
But yeah.
It took us two and a half years of shooting in the dark.
Our perspective or our design constraint for developing the machine was
low cost, low operation, low footprint.
We have to reach every nook and corner of India, to every village.
Our machine, if you put waste which is unsorted, we can extract the valuables
which is like your wet waste, which can go to composting, which can go to biogas.
Then we can extract the dry waste, which is basically paper, plastic.
And during this journey, we also realised that the plastics that come out, has no value.
We were left with a problem:
what is going to happen to that?
So we ended up creating another technology to take non-recyclable plastics
and recycle it.
We ended recycling it into two major products.
One is recycle sheets, which are like plywood.
And recycled lumber which is like timber.
This particular material can go to the construction industry,
can go to furniture making, can go to various applications like that.
Will that child not think twice before throwing a plastic bag?
This needs to be cultivated.
We need to tell them, we need to educate them.
Show them that it's not waste to begin with.
It's just waste because we have thrown it in the wrong way,
we have disposed it in the wrong way, and we don't know what to do about it.
It was not a easy journey. It was very tough for her.
I told her, “It may not be possible by you alone,"
"but when you start, you can find people coming and joining your mission.”
What’s your plan tomorrow?
I’m leaving at 4.
Mm?
The flight is at 8 so I need to be there…
Okay?
At least 3 hours before.
Okay.
Many a times that I’m stuck and no door is opening,
I sleep with that giving up attitude, but then I get up in the morning,
I’m like, somebody has to do it and I think I can.
UpLink, which is the open innovation platform of the World Economic Forum,
which is looking to support people and planet-focused entrepreneurs.
You're going to meet one of them today.
Without any further ado, I want to introduce Nivedha RM.
Why am I here?
Why am I thrilled about this event? And why am I talking to each one of you?
It’s because we have a vision of preventing 25,000 tonnes of waste
from entering the landfills every day.
Nivedha, you developed the world’s first completely automated
trash-sorting and recycling system.
How can we ensure that no one gets left behind as part of this circular transition?
So we wanted something that is local, and creating value, and employing people.
Right? Creating dignified employment.
Now, if you're are going to employ manpower to do this,
it's not only inhuman, it's impractical too.
But there's a real problem.
Policies globally, as well as country-wise, are not supportive of newer technologies,
taking more risks, and also not supportive of circular economy.
We need to solve the problem right from top.
You have to stop the manufacturing of those plastics.
Problem is like a mountain.
All of us put together, put all the technologies, put all the activism, put all the policies,
everything, we are a small ant.
And if we as small ants can't be together then we don't stand a chance.