Nothing is possible without the helping hand of youngsters. Youngsters are the hope of this nation to bring and make the change. Students all over the country are taking different measures in improving the condition of our country. Recently, a similar path was taken by Ashutosh and Pranav, Co-founders of WeConvert to make an impact in the field of waste management. These students from Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences (Delhi University) started their journey to revolutionize the waste being managed in the country.
1.What was the inspiration behind setting up a waste management domain?
There has been a tremendous increment in the waste material at an annual rate of 7% and there has been no practical solution to it. Delhi alone is responsible for the generation of 689.5 metric tons of such waste every day. Plastic consumption in India is forecast to reach 18.9 million tons, half of it in the form of packaging and bottles. Most of the people roaming about never dispose their waste correctly into the dustbins. The opportunity to provide a solution to this problem, we let ourselves go with this idea of developing smart waste collecting machines that will incentivize people for disposing of their waste correctly.
2. Can you tell us a little about We-Convert?
It was just another day for two engineers when they were talking about how to put their engineering skills to something useful and creative. On their way to platform (metro station), their attention was grabbed by an ordinary vending machine that dispenses some snacks automatically.“What if we make a machine that could collect the waste automatically?” one of them uttered.“Yes we can, but the question is how we can get people to use that machine?”, quoted the other. After few minutes, both of them shouted, “By rewarding the people”
At that moment, we laid the foundation of the concept of E-Collectors and the very next moment, we started working to elaborate the possibilities of such concept. Waste management has always been an issue in India. No organization, be it private or govt is out with any solution that could prove to be a success. Therefore, to solve this problem, We-Convert is out with a simple yet innovative product. We introduced the concept of the machine, we call them as E-Collectors that are meant to accept user’s waste material and in return generate some rewards!! We follow a simple policy of 3Rs.
- ‘Recycle’ by discarding your PET/Plastic, Glass scrap or aluminum cans. A user can follow on screen instructions on the machine and within few seconds, you are done with your waste disposal.
- ‘Register’ by sharing your mobile number details with us so that we can help you get your rewards at ease.
- ‘Reward’, in the end, the machine will Send a 5-digit code to your mobile number and all other details to redeem exciting offers.
3. What would be your perspective on the current waste disposal issues and how does your start-up aim to resolve them?
Current waste disposal system has quite flaws that enabled us to develop our smart machines. No individual takes the pain to throw their waste correctly. This is the reason why our streets are full of paper waste, bottles, cans etc. The recycling has always been an issue with Indian system. The Indian recycling units tend to import scrap material worth Rs. 28 crores. Incentivizing users is an innovative technique to get them involved in recycling. Our smart E-Bins enables the recycling agents to save a majority of their resources and yield more on productivity.
4. How do you think technology can help in further improving the waste management system?
Technology seems to be expanding its capabilities around us and nearly everything we use in our daily life involves some or another form of technical stuff. Starting from Smartphones to smart homes, we can see the development of technology to a next level and simplify our lives. Waste management is a domain that can be most effectively managed by the use of right technology and automated things to improve the productivit in an organized manner. The current system involve manual segregation and force people to work in unhygienic conditions to sort valuables out of waste. This can be reduced and automating the system with less human intervention can improve the efficiency of the system to a greater extent.
5. How can an individual get involved with the waste management process started by you?
We have our machines installed at various locations Airports, Metro stations, Railway stations, Schools/colleges, and Corporate office etc. As user once approaches the machine, he needs to follow the instructions written on the machine:
- Drop in your waste into the inlet of the machine.
- Then press the start button located on the upper left corner
- Wait for the machine to scan, the progress will be displayed on the 20” display mounted on the machine.
- The machine takes hardly a second to detect what you inserted.
- If the waste detected is a bottle/can/Glass, the machine will reward you else you won’t be rewarded for the rest of the stuff.
- The machine will shred the bottles/cans and will store in the inbuilt containers.
- The machine has the capacity to store 3000 bottles and 3000 cans (All shredded).
- The other waste category will be stored in a different container of the machine.
- The user will be sent with a 5-digit unique on his/her mobile after entering his/her mobile number via the keypad provided on E-Bins.
- The rewards include the offers from food chains to online retailers and many other exciting offers to choose from.
6. Have you seen positive results and what is the aim that you want to achieve by such a big project that you started?
Yes, we did demonstrate our E-Bins at locations including New Delhi Rly Station, IIIT Delhi, Faridabad Sector 15, Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce. During the span of 60 days, we received a tremendous response from the users and concerned authorities.We generated a user database of around 10,000 Users (~9860 users) who used our E-Bins. We generated a total of 746 Kgs of Scrap Material from a forementioned locations. We aim to automate the system of Recycling and improve the way we manage our waste management system. E-Bins will help conserve resources of various recycling industries and will also motivate people not to throw anything on the spot itself. We aim to go for 1000 E-Bins to be located at different places in India by the end of 2017.
8. Who was most helpful in building up this idea and motivating all this time?
Our Brand partners “Favcy” has been providing their great support to us since the beginning. We started this venture all by ourselves and with no funds and strategic plans. The whole team of Favcy has provided us with all their support and needed funds to kickstart the project and are still energetic about the concept. Our college Professors and whole faculty has also been supportive all the time and never complaint regarding the time when we missed our classes and other important submissions during the college time.
9. What is the message that you want to give to every individual of the country to make a difference ?
A simple yet important message that our whole team is trying to pass the society is about the sense of Responsibility that must evoke in each and every individual. We can only maintain our environment if every citizen learns not to litter anywhere while at the public places. We developed E-Bins with an aim to replace conventional bins and motivate people to throw off their waste correctly.
We convert’s official E Convert Website
