How a man creating sustainable pathways for future
June 21st , 2020 | Paras Saluja
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"Swachh Bharat Abhiyan" and the chain reaction started
I did my schooling from Delhi Public School, Ghaziabad and further pursued a Bachelor of Business Administration from I.T.S College, Ghaziabad. I was always enthusiastic about sports and played football and cricket in school and then played some cricket in college too. I belong to a mixed batch of business, pharmaceuticals and scientists however I took up commerce since science wasn’t my forte in school. I belong to a business family and growing up I always wanted to do something of my own and to learn the ropes I chose to become a part of the family business.
After college, I joined the family business and after more than a decade of taking care of that and understanding the business aspect of things I shifted my focus and took my first steps towards my life-long issue of reducing, reusing waste that’s present all around us, all the time.
While growing up the bone of contention between people and me was my OCD when it came to cleanliness, order and waste disposal. As a child, I often wondered about “someone” solving the pollution issues that we studied in school and saw all around us in society. But the younger me never found that “someone”.
As I grew, I became an avid traveler and during one of my trips, I was in Vietnam where I saw that they were very aware and sensitive about the waste they produced and how they managed to dispose or use it. That is when I realized that to solve my problem, I have to Be that someone that I was trying to find from my childhood for my own self. That is when it struck me that India is a big and populated country with a huge problem of waste being produced daily but not disposed off properly. I had then decided to do something about it in my home country and also found more about the “Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan” and that’s how the chain reaction of my pet project started.
Paying a price for the waste
I then researched on what can be done, how it can be done and what all is related and is cyclic to one particular thing. I needed to find the right solution to my problems and also for my business acumen. And that is when I contacted with CSIR-NPL (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research-National Physical Laboratory) and after several long discussions, various tests and other tedious yet satisfying processes and procedures we came up with a technology that was later transferred to us and that is how we are able to resolve the plastic waste issue now to a certain degree by being able to recycle the plastic that was filling the landfills every day. As we know that plastic doesn’t decompose easily and will live on earth more than any of us present today it seemed like the best thing to do for Mother Nature. This is in a way my contribution to Earth and Humanity.
Shayna’s products help the clients with easy, economical and speedy construction. Hence came out with the concept of tiles initially and later other products were introduced as well, which helps the society in using green technology to build smarter and greener ways of living.
When the idea to make a difference in the way we (humanity) were operating about our plastic waste struck me, I did not want to lose even 1 minute of my time not doing what I could for it to become a reality and change what can be changed.
When the opportunity presented itself then I wanted to make a product which is eco-friendly, something which did not wear and tear and could be used by us but since it came from waste, it shouldn’t touch our skin directly (if you intentionally don’t want it to☺)
In our journey, our first obstacle we faced was Paying a price for the waste that was filling the landfills unnecessarily. Initially, we thought that the waste which no one wants and no one can use will be available at no cost to us and we couldn’t have been more wrong in our assumption. We have to buy and incur a cost for something that economies are trying hard to find a solution for. That
is when we realise that everything will come at a price including reducing the problem of unfathomable plastic waste.
We had to create a breakthrough in order to establish a brand name and thrive in a country like India where set mindsets are a huge challenge. People often talk about climate change, saving the environment but they seldom do something especially if money is involved.
Earth is the only thing we all have in common
Also since bigger changes can be noticed through government involvement, currently we are facing issues in getting our listing done in schedule rate(PWD RATE LIST).
Another challenge I faced was that even though I have experience of handling a business, I was clueless about the working and dynamics of the Environment industry as I had no prior background of it or the science that went behind it.
There are 7 types of polymers and currently, we are recycling only 3 types and to develop the technology and solution for the rest of them we require huge investment and also government support in not just the licenses but also with listing and buying as the environmental changes can be best done if at large by the Government bodies and by the big Infrastructure and real estate companies.
The understanding and commitment of my various clients towards taking a step forward in the direction for dealing with plastic waste and using this technology for sustainable infrastructure for not just themselves but various other people have been very exciting for me as this gives us hope for the preservation of this beautiful planet.
The growing enthusiasm that I get to witness regarding this new technology when various people, companies and younger crowd approach me and want to know more about it and how they can use it in their current infrastructure environment.
We have consumed 450 tonnes of plastic waste and converted it into beautiful, sustainable, corrosion free and recyclable pathways and as people are becoming more and more aware of the problems of the environment we hope that we will continue to recycle much more than what we have done and also come up with other technologies to combat other problems of the environment.
Though at a lower rate but segregation of waste is now happening at the point of generation itself. In India the segregation is currently happening manually, therefore, being in this work now, my hope is that this section is channelized properly and becomes a separate and integral industry on its own with more technology being developed and introduced for the same including the introduction of automatic machines which is currently not available in India.
In the end I would just say that there can never be a single most effective way to resolve environmental issues for once and for all. We need to keep improving, trying, implementing and innovating.
It’s a culmination of different approaches at individual, industrial and societal level. We need to Rethink, reduce, re-use and recycle as much of our resources as possible because the resources don’t belong to just an individual but the whole society and we as a combined unit suffer when we don’t deal with the global issue together, Afterall EARTH is the only thing we all have in Common.
The author of the story is Paras Saluja and you can reach out to him at www.shaynaecounified.com
InwasteR is only a platform to share WStory and the views and experience are purely of the author.