Background –
My day job is that of a researcher but my weekends are spent creating solutions related to Solid Waste Management. i.e. segregation of waste, recycling, composting etc. I started with my own home about 1.5 years ago but over the last 6-8 months, with the help of numerous residents and other volunteers, we have managed
to put our entire society in Mumbai on the path of becoming waste free. In the last 5 months itself we have saved about 20 tons of waste from going into the landfill. Imagine, this is just from one society! Our wet waste is composted, dry waste is recycled and only the non-recyclable waste goes to landfill. We are now a group of
about 50+ volunteers in the western suburbs and we are hoping to scale this concept to hundreds of societies in Mumbai and potentially throughout the country. Our website is www.greensocieties.in
The event –
One of the key problems regarding solid waste is the lack of awareness among people about basic concepts like segregation of waste and the need for doing it. Although the concept is simple, most cleanliness related communication doesn’t pay much emphasis on the same.
We have an event coming up in the first week of January (it’s a large community Puja) which is going to be attended by 6-7000 residents from all across Mumbai. This event which will be from 9 am in the morning to about 3 pm in the afternoon, and is open for all members of a family. The key theme for this event is waste management. Our key objective is to ensure that all attendees understand the basic concept of segregation and recycling of waste.
We are inviting a number of composting/ recycling vendors who will set up their product/ service stalls at the venue. We are also planning to have banners/ posters to provide information.
Immediate problem at hand –
One of the thoughts was to gamify the key concepts of waste management and create an enjoyable user experience instead of being too preachy. We are looking for a company in the gaming space who can take this up as a project. The content / background material will be provided by us and we will be happy to promote the resulting game (which will be owned by whoever is developing it) at this and other events. All visitors will be asked to download the app and participate in return for some prizes. In fact, there is a dire need for well packaged content around waste management and I see numerous other organizations making use of this gamified ‘training material’.
A couple of examples I found online (just to give an idea of the concept)
https://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/richmedia/1/1143/project/dist/desktop.html
Those interested in more information/ taking this up do reach out to me.
Thanks Alok for providing this opportunity to connect with your audience.
Best,
Kedar Sohoni
