Trash Bee: A Start-Up To Foster Reusing Plastic Waste

APP

Peshawar: Trash Bee is serving as an inspiring model for educating the young generation about crucial green skills required to drive environmental change in the country and create a sustainable world.

Launched by a young engineer, Arsalan Ayaz, Trash Bee is a small production unit set up with the idea of promoting the practise of reusing plastic waste through an environmentally sustainable mode of recycling.

While talking to a group of journalists during a field trip arranged by the Institute of Urbanisation (IoU), Arsalan explained that the workers at Trash Bee sort the collected plastic scrap to ensure all contaminants have been removed. Once sorted and cleaned, plastic is shredded into flakes and melted to form pellets before finally being moulded into new products.

We have also installed a filter at the furnace to make the emissions less polluting and less harmful for humans and the environment, Arsalan informed.

The start-up is in its initial stages but is also making a contribution through donations from its meagre earnings to various institutions for carrying out research and development in the proper disposal of plastic waste, engineer further stated.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Pakistan generates approximately 20 million tonnes of solid waste annually, of which 5 to 10 percent is plastic waste.

Plastic pollution has an impact not only on the environment but also on human health because plastic trash can release toxic chemicals into the soil and water which can then be consumed by animals and enter the food chain.

Through effective recycling, we can treat some amounts of plastic trash while simultaneously transforming this resource into a source of income and job creation, Arsalan further said.

He also disclosed that Trash Bee is also making wooden cutlery out of bamboo wood to reduce the use of plastic. Bamboo wood cutlery is completely environmentally friendly, sturdy and disposable in landfills.

After cutlery, it will also produce additional household items made of bamboo wood to introduce a new and environmentally friendly source of raw material that can be used instead of hazardous plastic, the young engineer added.

According to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is also binding on our government to include the target of upgrading infrastructure and retrofitting industries to make them sustainable with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies, stated IoU Senior Fellow Dr Ejaz Ahmad.

IoU is also striving for ‘Building a Sustainable Future’ and– in connection with Youth Skills Day– is promoting the concept of green skills for educating the young generation to unlock their green potential and empower themselves with sustainable skills, Dr Ejaz added.