In Sri Lanka, virtually 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, baggage, straws and meals packaging are usually burnt, dumped or buried on web site – one thing Nishshanka de Silva, founding father of the ZeroPlastic Motion, is on a mission to alter.
It began when Nishshanka was transferring home in Colombo in 2021, and throughout the transfer he grew to become hyper-aware that so lots of the home items he was packing up had been produced 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 dwelling, which developed into an internet retailer he created to assist others make the swap.
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 house. Inside this work, he was capable of converse to school college students and workers members concerning the air pollution drawback he was making an attempt to unravel and encourage folks to think about alternate options to plastic objects like mild switches, lamps, brooms or garbage bins and make extra aware 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 web site to share the work of native artisans producing different, non-plastic merchandise, however felt conflicted by the pursuit of revenue and use of restricted assets earlier than making an attempt to unravel the air pollution drawback. After six months, the location 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 location, 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 constructive change, he made the decision to close down the location, 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.
Immediately, 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 way of massive scale group clean-ups and schooling periods 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 information or consciousness about waste administration on a private degree. Then, there are the infrastructure and waste administration challenges that depart rural areas out of the image. Lastly, Nishshanka explains that plastic objects – baggage, containers, family objects – are usually favoured due to their decrease price and sturdiness, and so folks proceed shopping for them.
With tackling this three-part drawback in thoughts, the ZeroPlastic Motion has been shortly constructing momentum. Immediately, it unites hundreds of volunteers in Sri Lanka who take part in garbage assortment tasks and community-based occasions.
At certainly one of these occasions, the ZeroPlastic Motion caught the eye of Poornaka Delpatricha, the overall supervisor of Intrepid Sri Lanka.
‘As quickly as we met Intrepid, I knew there was alignment, and I knew it aligned so nicely with my objective,’ Nishshanka says.
Not lengthy after, the ZeroPlastic Motion grew to become a companion of The Intrepid Basis and so they launched their first joint challenge in Sigiriya.
Bringing travellers into the answer
Sigiriya (Lion Rock) is among the nation’s most recognisable landmarks, however plastic air pollution poses a large risk to each the world’s surroundings and wildlife – together with the elephants that decision it dwelling. Locals and guests play a component in protecting Sigiriya clear, nevertheless a scarcity of infrastructure stood in the best way.
‘Consider lots of of travellers visiting each 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 – massive, cage-like constructions – are created as a devoted web site for recycling plastic bottles. Whereas it sounds easy, Nishshanka explains that the receptacles are solely part of the challenge. In smaller cities like Sigiriya, common waste administration dumps all the things – together with recyclables – into landfills. In ZeroPlastic’s mannequin, every bin is ‘owned’ by an area household who’s chargeable for amassing and safely storing the bottles at dwelling.
‘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 bought to native clothes factories and became yarn that’s used to create t-shirts.
The street to the long run
In 2023, 400 folks visited Sigiriya on the ZeroPlastic Path, an organised occasion to have a good time 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 a good time a brand new ZeroPlastic bin added to the Galle neighborhood.
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 looks like he’s doing one thing to unravel the issue, he can get again to certainly one of his earlier goals – constructing a hub for artisans to promote hand-crafted objects.
Already, there’s a small, part on the ZeroPlastic Motion’s web site web site that sells items like bamboo toothbrush holders or cane-woven bin covers. Nishshaknka explains how artisans throughout the nation discover it difficult to compete in opposition to the price and availability of plastic-made objects in comparison with the worth of their hand-made objects. He hopes to encourage and assist the tradition of constructing and sharing objects from technology to technology.
With funds from the influence grant, Nishshanka plans to create a neighborhood hub in Weweldeniya – a village recognized for producing bamboo and cane objects. His imaginative and prescient for the hub contains creatinga multi-purpose house with a retail retailer, artisan workshop and shared areas for the neighborhood.
He needs to encourage folks to rethink the variety of plastic objects they purchase and assist 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.
