YourStory.in

One man’s waste is another man’s opportunity, or in this case three men. Saurabh Jain Utsav Sharma and Nitin Goel are taking Green entrepreneurship to the next level, and eradicating waste while making a living. GreenOBin is their ticket to a cleaner greener future which will work to the benefit of all. The Young entrepreneurial trio of friends told us what it is all about, and how they make waste work saying “GreenOBin provides a complete range of independent recycling and waste management facilities to both industrial and commercial customers as well as local authorities whilst reducing the volume of waste going to landfills.”

“We collect waste paper classified as 'Scrap' from companies, schools and housing societies; after collection of the waste, it is sent to recyclers. Our waste management services include waste audits, security shredding and custom training on benefits of recycling to customers. The Waste Audits service helps customers minimize the wastes by identifying the type, amount and content source of wastage. We also have a great range of recycle and security bins to organize and manage office recycling easily.”

“Factors like increasing public acceptance of environmental controls, inadequacy of landfill spaces, increasing waste disposal problems witnessed due to urbanization & consumption creates immense opportunities for recycling. Looking at the facts for recycling paper instead of producing virgin paper, it will be also a great help to save the deteriorating environment.”

It is not just the bigger corporates that benefit in the long run, every person involved directly and indirectly in the recycling of waste will have something to show for it. “GreenOBin are primarily focusing on developing an organized waste paper collection service which is done by rag pickers and local vendors. We are working towards the root cause of the problem which is “contamination of waste paper” resulting in improper waste paper for recycling. Contamination occurs out of two basic reasons: i) Lack of Awareness ii) Improper waste collection methods.” said the trio.

“Taking a very simple example of any organization, source segregation of waste paper is missing. Every one of us who use paper or paper products must have thrown some amount of paper to bins which already consists of food material, liquid or some other agent which soils the waste paper and get it contaminated. GreenOBin, tackles this in two stages:

• We provide specialized awareness training relating to office environments
• Specialized Recycling Bins for source segregation.

We try to make everyone who uses a large amount of paper in their daily lives remember about Environmental Stewardship.”

Where other recycling ventures have fallen short of the mark, GreenOBin is sure of their chances of success. They said “In a service oriented market GreenOBin provides featured waste paper collection service as our unique selling proposition. The sector is not organized &  has not flourished as compared to the growth what India has seen in the last decade, as a result a considerable amount of paper produced goes to landfill or otherwise responsible for polluting the environment.”

“Out of the possibilities as — recycling, waste paper collection or recovery, and waste paper based handicrafts; we are focusing on Waste Paper Collection. At present, the collection of waste paper is the domain of rag pickers, and scrap dealers. Once collected, it passes through several hands before reaching the paper mills, if it does. And if it does, the price at which it is sold to the paper mills almost doubles!”

They have a plan for expanding their reach and influence. They spoke about expansion and growth saying “Being at the development stage, we have divided our customer base in three phases in order to concentrate well on each segment; paper usage being our deciding criteria. Following a top to bottom approach with the most prolific paper user coming first, we plan to target MNC’s and Blue-Chip companies in Indian metros as our first phase customers. Being a socially responsible corporate can play a major role in working in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner thereby maintaining inter generational equity. Our services will also help them in cutting down their operational costs. Using the same top to bottom approach we will target Schools/colleges and households as our second and third phase customers respectively in future.”

It seems the three have an almost telepathic link or a great deal of understanding for their entrepreneurial dreams have all stemmed form the same source. They explained how their entrepreneurial aspirations came about saying “It started almost one and a half year back, after being into a MNC job for a period we started to realize that this is not all, its not our future will be like and we need to work on something else may it be further studies or something else.”

“Now we have started looking over our surroundings with a different view, we were trying to find out problems lying in society which can be taken care of with certain help from technology and an organized structure. Here, while coming and going back from our office everyday we used to see a lot of waste stuff lying back in our basement parking which needs to be taken care upon, this is the scenario which made us look into this opportunity. We explored it more and found there is a lot of potential with the market of recycling and reuse.”

GreenOBin team takes a lot of pride in their ability to attract customers, VC’s, and partners. They have not been carried away by their accolades, and with a steady head on their three shoulders states “However, we do understand that this is just the beginning and we need to be focused and work hard to keep up the good work and live up to the expectations which we have instigated.” 

Yourstory believes that the future is indeed what GreenOBin is looking towards, and hopes that their journey into waste management will prove to be beneficial to all.