11.08.2013 Garbage is gold
Nargis Latif, the founding trustee of Gulbahao, has been exploring the potential of waste as a means of generating livelihoods and eradicating poverty
By Dr Noman Ahmed
Karachi is a city that is home to people with diverse interests and pursuits. From raw adventure seekers to serene Sufis, the list is endless. But it is difficult to find a waste management activist, if not impossible!
Nargis Latif, the founding trustee of ‘Gulbahao’ — a non-profit organization — is an outstanding mention. During the past 16 years of her most dedicated involvement, Nargis has contributed her untiring efforts in exploring the potential of waste as a means of generating livelihoods and eradicating poverty. With missionary zeal, she is committed to prove that municipal and other forms of solid waste is a resource and can drastically change and benefit the lives of small scale entrepreneurs.
Nargis studied in depth the waste generation, management and disposal in Karachi. She also interacted with various formal and informal stakeholders linked with commercial activities related to waste. Push cart vendors, scavengers, petty contractors, small scale entrepreneurs, agents and suppliers constituted this category.
Through this self-motivated field research, Nargis learned about the untapped economic promise of different types of refuse and rubbish. Her university degree helped her to delve deep into various issues of the subject and generate workable options with the assistance of various experts in the field.
About 100 staff now works for Gulbahao Trust. Nargis has been able to mobilise Rs80 million contributed by various philanthropists and businessmen. She has also exhausted her entire family savings into this noble public cause.
Some of her solutions were extraordinarily simple and easy to adapt for ordinary folks. ‘Cleanliness and Earning Bank’ is one such venture. Through a mass awareness campaign in various neighbourhoods, Nargis promoted the careful segregation of all such waste which possessed a value through re-use or recycling option.
House wives, young people and even elderly folks would bring vehicle loads of such material to her bank which was an open yard for collection. Her staff and volunteers listed, weighed and valued all such articles and opened a ‘waste account’. People were informed about the periodic balance on each deposit transaction. After the account would reach a certain value, she gave away gold coins worth the corresponding value. This extremely popular operation made her coin the slogan “garbage is gold”. Whereas the people had the option of simply receiving cash after depositing waste loads, most of them preferred the gold coin option due to its novelty and attraction.
This project of Gulbahao has been working since 1997. Gulbahao sold this garbage to larger waste procurement enterprises or recycling industries. For organic ingredients comprising kitchen waste, she introduced the option of compost which was also appreciated.
Housewives were encouraged to separate vegetable and fruit peels and trained to put them in a properly sized pit in the garden. With improvised steps of making compost, the housewives and gardeners were able to reduce the household expenses on gardening to a great extent. The growth and performance of plants and foliage correspondingly grew. I discovered many operators of plant nurseries prosper who bought the concept from Gulbahao and used it for their commercial benefits.
‘Silver House’ is another interesting innovation by Nargis and her team. The trust collects defected layers of aluminum foils from various industries. This foil is used to envelop the compressed blocks of waste material through pressing. The mode of construction can also be used with ordinary sand and dry trash. Different type of shelter structures can be developed with minimum skills and props.
Nargis and her team have trained many volunteers who became master trainers for others. During the devastating floods in Pakistan during 2010, Nargis was able to erect a 15 sq. meter room shelter in one day. Hundreds of such shelters were erected in relief camps to provide accommodation to affected population in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab through a massive volunteer operation.
In the wake of World Environment Day in June this year, many of the evidences of Gulbahao’s work were on display under the Rashid Minhas Road bridge precinct in Karachi. Thousands of keen observers came and appreciated her outstanding resolve towards improving the environment.
Pakistan continues to face grave fuel crises. Shortage of fuel is one soaring problem which affects households, businesses and industries. Gulbahao conducted a focused research around the potential of different types of factory wastes and by-products which could be used as alternative. And there came amazing responses.
Years of field research and interaction with stakeholders enabled Nargis and her team to generate ‘fuel pack’. This product is a block weighing about ten kilogrammes. It is composed to clean waste material generated from industries such as bits and shreds of wood, paper and cloth. A protective layer of aluminum foil is applied to maintain its quality before use. By applying compression, the waste material is pressed down in volume, making it effective. The fuel pack can be used in factories with boilers or thermal power chambers. It is also used by brick manufacturing kilns as a better substitute of natural gas or other expensive fuels.
Nargis and her team have spent months to collect the waste from about 80 factories in the industrial locations in Karachi. Her idea is ripe for commercial scale production. Independent estimates inform that it can replace at least ten per cent of conventional fuel. In other words, it has a net commercial potential of Rs 15 billion at the peak capacity.
Why Nargis and her work are important to be recognized? I have five arguments to offer. Waste management is usually considered as the duty of municipality alone, at least in Pakistan. Not much attention is given to the manner in which waste is disposed. The work of Gulbahao has given new dimensions to this approach. It tags waste as a valuable resource which needs to be treated as such. Two, Nargis has introduced a dimension of continuous research to discover doable solutions around waste. Some experts may not entirely agree with the populist style of her field work, but she has credible results to show. Three, her work has generated avenues of livelihoods and entrepreneurship. This can help eradicate poverty by generating employment, albeit at a modest scale. Four, being a women, she has broken the social barrier that the fairer sex cannot undertake tedious field work alongside men. And five, she has displayed unwavering faith in her mission despite hurdles, disappointments and limited response from the government.
The social, political and economic troubles faced by Pakistan has not dampened her spirits. We need many more visionaries like her!