Understanding the need for sustainable waste management and taking a step to spread awareness on the same, The Kachra Project was started by two youngsters – a post-graduate in environment management and an MBA graduate.
“As someone working on the internet for environmental non-profits, I realised the dearth of good campaigns that focus on local environmental issues,” begins Arpita Bhagat, a 27-year-old, whose interest lies in understanding environment sociology.
“I believe in community-based approaches to solve local environmental issues keeping the global context in mind,” she says.
Arpita notes how initiatives around local issues such as waste disposal are ignored, though there are enough resources generated towards issues such as climate change and deforestation.
“We wanted to create a platform where anyone who is inclined towards waste sustainability can benefit. A platform where we deal with each stream of waste – sanitary, plastic, vegetable, electronic, textile etc., – both from consumers and people’s perspective,” she shares and adds that the motive behind the campaign is to create solutions that are accessible for laypersons – a homemaker, college-goers and others.
How do they plan to do that? “We want to provide solutions to people who want to make an easy transition to an alternate lifestyle. We plan to do this for each waste stream by bringing its stakeholders together, creating an open knowledge base, policy and also the policy perspective and available alternatives. Depending on the stream, these solutions may wary from area to area but the approach will be streamlined. This also gives opportunities for small local businesses doing good work in the sector to benefit from working with us,” explains Arpita.
Simply put, The Kachra project aims to mobilise people around waste issues in India and to make them conscious of the nitty-gritty of different waste streams.
The team currently comprises Arpita and Rohit Sharma, who is the man behind the graphic yet truthful visuals of the various campaigns of The Kachra Project. They also have a few volunteers working for them.
“We build campaigns and resources around a specific waste stream in partnership that is scientific, experiential and always open source. Our ambition is to build long-term engagement with communities to deal with their waste better over time instead of giving them one shot answers,” elaborates Arpita.
The team works with a clear-cut goal – to make a sustainable India. “We want people to understand the life cycle of products they use, know its effects on the environment, be able to see waste as a resource not an easily forgettable throwaway, make informed eco-conscious decisions, have access to information resources needed to make these choices simpler. A zero waste lifestyle is possible if more of us are able to understand its value and want to do it,” points Arpita.