In Sri Lanka, nearly 250,000 tonnes of plastic waste are created yearly, however greater than 1 / 4 of it isn’t collected in any respect. As a substitute, on a regular basis objects like plastic bottles, luggage, straws and meals packaging are sometimes burnt, dumped or buried on website – one thing Nishshanka de Silva, founding father of the ZeroPlastic Motion, is on a mission to vary.
It began when Nishshanka was shifting home in Colombo in 2021, and in the course of the transfer he turned hyper-aware that so lots of the home items he was packing up had been created from plastic. From there, he found simply how a lot plastic waste was being created in Sri Lanka, and infrequently not collected correctly, and got down to curate non-plastic alternate options for his new house, which developed into a web-based retailer he created to assist others make the change.
Earlier than creating the web retailer, Nishshanka had labored in tech for over 18 years and, on the time, was working as college visitor lecturer within the cyber safety area. Inside this work, he was in a position to communicate to college college students and employees members concerning the air pollution drawback he was attempting to resolve and encourage folks to contemplate alternate options to plastic objects like gentle switches, lamps, brooms or garbage bins and make extra conscious purchases.
All of us wish to be the voice of our technology pushing to scale back plastic.
Past schooling, Nishanka additionally needed to make use of his website to share the work of native artisans producing various, non-plastic merchandise, however felt conflicted by the pursuit of revenue and use of restricted assets earlier than attempting to resolve the air pollution drawback. After six months, the positioning took off, however Nishshanka felt the timing of the web market wasn’t proper.
‘I used to be lecturing at universities concerning the plastic drawback in Sri Lanka and selling the positioning, however I hit some extent the place it felt unethical to be selling new merchandise with out fixing the [waste] drawback,’ he says.
Nishshanka mentioned that regardless of rising curiosity from college students and volunteers wanting to assist contribute to optimistic change, he made the decision to close down the positioning, however his story was solely getting began. Not lengthy after, he registered the ZeroPlastic Motion as a not-for-profit in 2022 and pivoted to assist clear up the air pollution drawback.
At the moment, Nishshanka tells me that the ZeroPlastic Motion is Sri Lanka’s largest volunteer-driven environmental initiative, with over 11,000 members working collectively to struggle plastic air pollution by giant scale group clean-ups and schooling classes at universities and community-run tasks. ‘It’s a generational factor, and all of us wish to be the voice of our technology pushing to scale back plastic,’ mentioned Nishshanka.
Extra folks, extra influence, much less plastic
Nishshanka explains that the issue is threefold. The primary half, he says, is schooling and the lack of expertise or consciousness about waste administration on a private stage. Then, there are the infrastructure and waste administration challenges that go away rural areas out of the image. Lastly, Nishshanka explains that plastic objects – luggage, containers, family objects – are sometimes favoured due to their decrease value and sturdiness, and so folks proceed shopping for them.
With tackling this three-part drawback in thoughts, the ZeroPlastic Motion has been rapidly constructing momentum. At the moment, it unites hundreds of volunteers in Sri Lanka who take part in garbage assortment tasks and community-based occasions.
At one among these occasions, the ZeroPlastic Motion caught the eye of Poornaka Delpatricha, the final supervisor of Intrepid Sri Lanka.
‘As quickly as we met Intrepid, I knew there was alignment, and I knew it aligned so properly with my goal,’ Nishshanka says.
Not lengthy after, the ZeroPlastic Motion turned a companion of The Intrepid Basis they usually launched their first joint mission in Sigiriya.
Bringing travellers into the answer
Sigiriya (Lion Rock) is without doubt one of the nation’s most recognisable landmarks, however plastic air pollution poses an enormous risk to each the world’s setting and wildlife – together with the elephants that decision it house. Locals and guests play a component in conserving Sigiriya clear, nonetheless a scarcity of infrastructure stood in the way in which.
‘Consider lots of of travellers visiting every single day, and everybody brings their garbage and simply leaves it at Sigiriya, and all of the recyclable waste goes into landfill when all of it will get combined collectively,’ he says.
Collectively, the 2 organisations got down to change this and launched the primary ZeroPlastic garbage bin to Sigiriya.
These bins – giant, cage-like constructions – are created as a devoted website for recycling plastic bottles. Whereas it sounds easy, Nishshanka explains that the receptacles are solely part of the mission. In smaller cities like Sigiriya, common waste administration dumps every little thing – together with recyclables – into landfills. In ZeroPlastic’s mannequin, every bin is ‘owned’ by an area household who’s liable for gathering and safely storing the bottles at house.
‘As soon as they’ve collected one tonne, ZeroPlastic sends an unbiased recycling collective truck to go to the house of the bin proprietor,’ Nishshanka says.
ZeroPlastic pays the ‘bin proprietor’ for every bottle collected. The plastic is then offered to native clothes factories and become yarn that’s used to create t-shirts.
The street to the longer term
In 2023, 400 folks visited Sigiriya on the ZeroPlastic Path, an organised occasion to have fun the launch of the brand new bins in partnership with The Intrepid Basis. Elsewhere within the nation, over 4000 folks joined native walks to gather waste.
These numbers proceed to develop, with Nishshanka proudly reporting over 11,000 volunteers joined the 2024 ZeroPlastic Stroll to Galle to have fun a brand new ZeroPlastic bin added to the Galle group.
In October, the ZeroPlastic Motion was awarded a $50,000 influence grant from The Intrepid Basis. So, what’s subsequent? Nishshanka has a imaginative and prescient for extra ZeroPlastic bins throughout the nation, and now that he appears like he’s doing one thing to resolve the issue, he can get again to one among his earlier desires – constructing a hub for artisans to promote hand-crafted objects.
Already, there’s a small, part on the ZeroPlastic Motion’s web site website that sells items like bamboo toothbrush holders or cane-woven bin covers. Nishshaknka explains how artisans throughout the nation discover it difficult to compete towards the fee and availability of plastic-made objects in comparison with the worth of their hand-made objects. He hopes to encourage and help the tradition of constructing and sharing objects from technology to technology.
With funds from the influence grant, Nishshanka plans to create a group hub in Weweldeniya – a village recognized for producing bamboo and cane objects. His imaginative and prescient for the hub consists of creatinga multi-purpose area with a retail retailer, artisan workshop and shared areas for the group.
He needs to encourage folks to rethink the variety of plastic objects they purchase and help native artisans in breaking the cycle of plastic consumption. And that’s the place the way forward for ZeroPlastic turns into a round one – going again to the place it began to proceed making a plastic-free Sri Lanka.
Study extra about ZeroPlastic Motion and discover your personal accountable Intrepid journey in Sri Lanka.
