Mother Earth: she cares for us and provides us with everything that we have. Nobody could own a business without the natural bounty all around them.
But after many years on the take, some entrepreneurs are looking for ways to give back to nature, building viable businesses in the process.
How? – you might ask. Well, it turns out that entrepreneurs are smart people with good ideas. Here’s just a few of them.
Turning trash into cash
An Indian startup, Pom Pom, want to help millions of people living in the New Delhi area turn their trash into cash. Every year, the city produces billions of tons of recyclable waste which people are willing to pay for. Pom Pom goes to people’s homes, picks up their trash, and then makes them a small payment over their app.
The company hopes that it will get more people involved in what it’s doing when they realize that they’re doing the right things and helping the environment.
They’re also educating their customers, getting them to separate out their trash into different recycling groups. According to Deepak Sethi, the co-founder, and CEO of Pom Pom, using their service helps to make their customers feel like valued members of the community.
Using waste as sustainable resources
There are already ways that many companies are taking regular industry waste and turning it into products that help the environment. For instance, companies using Uniwin filtering equipment can use the slurry from food production as compostable material.
Other companies are looking at ways of extracting various metals from electronics so that they can be reused and avoid going into landfill and polluting the water.
For instance, Attero is looking at ways to recycle electronics completely, stripping them of all their toxic metals and then using those metals in new batches.
NASA is helping many of these companies put their methods to the test by lending it’s testing facilities to companies pursuing environmental sustainability.
Upcycling old products
Upcycling is something that has been done in interior design circles for many years. The idea is to take older objects, do a little bit of DIY and then reinsert them into a room as new.
Upcycle Project hopes to do exactly this, but on a much bigger scale. It’s trying to create beautiful and quirky home accessories from items that would ordinarily be considered “trash.”
The team is manned by artists and designers, all with an eye for how to turn the most neglected household items into stunning recycled pieces that would suit any modern home.
Selling scrap
People in pickup trailers have been driving around for a long time, picking up odd bits of scrap metal to sell for their material value. But there’s no need to rush out of your home anymore when the pickup truck drives by.
Instead, a company called EnCashed has built a platform where you can sell just about any scrap you like. The site allows you to sell plastics, metals, books, magazines and paper to reputable dealers, all from the comfort of your own home.