New Startup Saves 45,000 Trees, Recycles 470 Tons in 8 Months
Nisar Ahmed (right) and Muquayyar Ahmed (left)
Want to earn from your household scrap while helping the environment? This startup not only offers a free pick-up service, it also uses a part of the profits to educate under privileged kids.
Three brothers from Hyderabad have started ‘Crapbin’
‘Crapbin’, founded by three brothers from Hyderabad Nisar Ahmed, Muquayyar Ahmed and ZuberQuresh, was launched in November 2018. It offers doorstep waste-collection service to households, communities and industries. The startup allo
ws you to book the services online for dry and recyclable waste like books, newspaper, paper, magazines, cardboard, glass bottles, soft plastic, plastic, steel, iron, aluminum, copper, tin, brass and electronic items.
The brothers had a hard time convincing their parents to trust the company’s vision. For their parents, it was nothing more than just another scrap dealer organisation. In their words, it was their sons picking up people’s waste.
All one has to do is either book a service on their website or give a call on 7799996096 to book a slot on any day of the week. Once the free pick up request is accepted, the company will assign an executive to the customers based on the location.The staff will then visit the house, weigh the scrap using an electronic weighing machine and pay in cash based on the existing market rates. The prices per kilo are regularly updated on their website.The customer can also subscribe to a monthly arrangement, where the executive will schedule a particular day every month for the pick-up.
All the collected scrap is taken to the company’s waste yard where the staff segregates it. The company has tied up with local waste management firms who visit the yard and take the junk for recycling purposes.
Just a couple of months before Crapbin was launched, Zuber’s mother asked him to sell the household scrap to a local scrap dealer but he could not find one.Recalling that time, Zuber, a 26-year-old mechanical engineering graduate, says: “While one scrapdealer refused to take e-waste, another one dealt with only paper waste like newspapers, books and magazines. It took me almost an entire week and several visits to dispose off all the junk.”
This incident made Zuber look for a more feasible option and that is when the idea of an online scrap portal struck.He expressed his idea to his brothers Muquayyar (32) and Nisar (29) and the startup came into existence.
For the trio, environment was another motivation for venturing into this field.People find it difficult to go to local kabadiwala to dispose off their scrap and ultimately it will end up in dump yards, rivers and landfills, so we wanted to give them last stage convenience for disposing off their dry waste easily. Crapbin started with a vision to reduce waste in landfills by creating a circular economy, says Muquayyar, an Electronic Engineer.
Nasir, a Civil Engineer, says, “With India’s growing population, the country faces massive waste management challenges due to inefficient waste disposal infrastructure and an increasing rate of dry waste generation every year. We aim to provide some relief to this problem.”
The brothers had a hard time convincing their parents to trust the company’s vision. For their parents, it was nothing more than just another scrap dealer organisation. In their words, it was their sons picking up people’s waste. The brothers explained in detail about the recycling process and the kind of environmental impact it would create and yet a certain amount of scepticism remained, says Muquayyar.
Fortunately, the objection did not stop the brothers to walk on the unexplored path.The brothers used social media platforms and canopy tents to spread the word about their startup and within a period of nine months, Crapbin had a 1,700-strong customer base and has recycled 470 tonnes of dry waste. With the amount of paper the startup has recycled since its inception, the website claims to have saved 45,000 trees and 7,45,000 litres of water so far.
In terms of social impact, the company generated employment for 20 people who are Senior Secondary pass-outs and a part of Crapbin’s profits is allocated to fund the education of underprivileged kids.The brothers now hope to scale up their operations by expanding to Pune next, followed by other cities. Currently they are doing research and conducting a few pilot projects to recycle wet waste.
(Extracted from the betterindia.com)
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