 Welcome to the global launch of the short film, Back to Zero, Sorting the World's Waste Problem. I'm your host, Emanuella Orsini, broadcasting to you live from the World Economic Forum Studio in Geneva. Now, we're thrilled to welcome you here today and to share with you this film, which has been produced as part of a collaboration between Uplink, the Global Plastic Action Partnership, and the creative content team of the World Economic Forum. Now, Uplink was founded in 2020 in partnership with Salesforce and Deloitte. And it's helping to source and scale innovators who are working on solutions to some of the world's biggest problems. And the entrepreneur you're going to be hearing more about today is one of those innovators. She's Niveta R.M., the founder and CEO of Trashcon, a startup based out of Bengaluru, India, that is tackling the country's trash problem head-on. Now, India generates 110 million metric tons of waste every year. And much of this is collected and sorted manually by waste pickers working in unimaginable conditions. Or it ends up in landfill, slowly poisoning the air, soil, and groundwater. Now, this film tells the story of Niveta and her solution to this devastating problem, the trash bot, the world's first automatic waste segregating machine that sorts trash and recycles it, converting every bit of waste and turning it into something of value. Now, we'll show you the documentary in just a moment. And following this, we'll be joined by Niveta herself, alongside the producer and director of the film, Hyogen Park, and the director of the Global Plastic Action Partnership, Kristin Hughes, for Quick Q&A. So please stick around for that. So without further ado, here it is, back to zero, sorting the world's waste problem. Enjoy. There was this stretch of land which was filled with waste and, like anybody, we want to clean it up. We clean it up. But then the waste reappeared. Nobody is really interested to change overnight. Even if people segregate, there's no way to recycle it. There's no infrastructure available. So there are multiple broken pieces of this. How do we solve this problem that's going to kill our future generations, literally? The problem is huge. Tea. Wait, ginger tea. Ginger tea is okay for you? Your favorite ginger tea? Yes. Oh. We're talking about 200,000 tons of waste in India every day. People don't segregate their waste. When they don't segregate, you can't create value, and hence it has to go to the landfills. We don't have any more land left. So of course it'll end up in front of your houses. And what I realized is there is no solution that's actually solving the problem, which is like say a big plastic bag with food and glass and everything mixed into it. That's why it's on the streets. Day and night. That kid's dying because of respiratory cancer, because the landfills are burgeoning and then they burn. And then there is leachate, thick black liquid that has already percolated into the groundwater. And residents in and around are literally having such water to drink. When people are dying already, we think that we're very far away from it. But it's not. And that's when I realized that they're not going to be able to do what they're supposed to do. But it's not. And that's when I realized that there needs to be a solution first to sort the trash. Because the moment I do that, then the degradables could be recycled. And during that journey, the initial few months is when I met my co-founder. Sort of. So I would see her going from her house, which was about 40 kilometers from the place where she was testing the machine. She was walking for a while, taking a bus, then taking a metro. Again, getting down, taking a cab and reaching that place. And she was doing this every single day. When I started making my small prototype, I was going to the landfill and I used to go there and put waste into my machine. And it was just not working. It was just not working. In fact, the machine broke down and I had exhausted all my money. And I said, I want to give up. This was, I think, when she was in third grade, yeah, she was the angel. She is coming all the way from heaven to tell her the human beings in earth how horrible you people are. You are so insensitive. You don't value life. All these things, it's so... Her happy place as a stage. That, I think, is her gift. That's Niveda. She always thinks that I want to change the lives of the... not few people, billions and billions of people. I want to change their lives. I want to make them better. As any startups, it's not easy to get the money or support. So she has asked me, well, I don't have others to finance me, what should I do? So all the money which I save, these are all the money for you. How much ever you want, you take it. I'm not going to take up any out of it. Use it for your business. What if I fail? Failing is not a problem. Go back to zero. That's a wonderful number, you know? That's zero. Because from there on, everything starts. I told her, see, don't give up. You're doing a great work and it will benefit the society a lot. Frankly, I didn't have any idea about what I was saying. And she said, come on the ground and show it to me, you know? You would not be even able to stand in such a place. The following day I went there, I could see babies there in the lap of those women who were removing plastics and paper and I really felt horrified, you know? How can somebody work in this situation? When we were working in the dump sites, we could feel what the waste picker is going through. Because if we don't do this, billions of people have to do this. They have to live in waste. We have to add 5-6 eggs. We are suffering from the hands and legs. It's hard to take it out. He's been doing this for a long time. This is the first trash pot. This was 50 kgs on earth, 50. It never worked. It broke. It was absolutely the reverse. Wet fell in dry, dry fell in wet. I don't know what were we on. I mean, what made us think that we could crack it? Something kept us going and we could never give up on the mission. The worst part is you're nauseated. Right? You want to puke, but you have to think of a problem that's impossible to solve. You can think when you're in an air-conditioned room or when you're in a laboratory. But thinking in a dump site in a landfill where it's nauseating and figuring out solutions are not just figuring out. It's not like, hey, I've got an idea and it's done. You have to fix it. You have to prototype. You have to try it there because you can't come back and try it because it's very far away every land. No food because there's nothing available. No where to pee, especially for me. But it took us two and a half years of shooting in the dark. Art perspective or art design constraint for developing the machine was low cost, low operation, low footprint. We have to reach every nook and corner of India to every village. Our machine, if you put a waste which is unsorted, we can extract the valuables, which is like your wet waste, which can go to composting, which can go to biogas. Then we can extract the dry waste, which is basically paper, plastic. And during this journey, we also realized that the plastics that come out has no value. We were left with a problem. What is going to happen to that? So we ended up creating another technology to take non-recyclable plastics and recycle it. We ended up recycling it into two major products. One is recycled sheets, which are like plywood and recycled lumber, which is like timber. This particular material can go to the construction industry, can go to furniture making, can go to various applications like that. We use recycled plastic. We use recycled plastic. We use plastic from home. How do you use plastic? How do you do it? How do you do it? I don't have a desk in Shalina. It is very difficult for the children to find a place to sit and listen to music. How do you use a bench desk to sit and listen to music? What do you use? A desk desk. How do you use a desk desk? A desk desk. We use plastic. We use recycled plastic. It is very difficult for children. It is very difficult. Will that child not think twice before throwing a plastic bag? This needs to be cultivated. We need to tell them, we need to educate them. Show them that it's not waste to begin with. It's just waste because we have thrown it in the wrong way, we have disposed it in the wrong way and we don't know what to do about it. It was not a easy journey. It was very tough for her. I don't know. It may not be possible by you alone, but when you start, you can find people coming and joining your mission. What's your plan tomorrow? I'm leaving at four. The flight is at eight. I need to be there at least three hours before. Many a times that I'm stuck and no door is opening. I sleep with that giving up attitude, but then I get up in the morning and I'm like, somebody has to do it and I think I can. The public, which is the open innovation platform of the world at home forum, which is looking to support people and planet-focused entrepreneurs, you're going to meet one of them today. Without any further ado, I want to introduce Nevada RM. Why am I here? Why am I thrilled about this event and why am I talking to each one of you? It's because we have a vision of preventing 25,000 tons of waste from entering the landfills every day. You develop the world's first completely automated trash sorting and recycling system. How can we ensure that no one gets left behind as part of the circular transition? So we wanted something that was local and creating value and employing people, right? Creating dignified employment. Now, if you're going to employ manpower to do this, it's not only inhuman, it's impractical too. But there's a real problem. Policies globally as well as country-wise are not supportive of newer technologies, taking more risks and also not supportive of circular economy in a way. We need to solve the problem right from top. You have to stop the manufacturing of those plastics. Problem is like a mountain. All of us put together, put all the technologies, put all the activism, put all the policies, everything, we are a small land. And if we as small lands can't be together, then we don't stand a chance. What an amazing story of persistence, dedication, and ultimately hope that the damaging impact on people and the planet can actually be solved. Now, we're delighted to welcome to our studio the subject of this short film, Nevada RM, CEO of Trashcon, alongside the director and lead producer Hyogen Park and Kristen Hughes from the Global Plastic Action Partnership. Welcome. Thank you so much for you all for being here. Now, Nevada, I want to start with you. What was your reaction watching the film for the first time and now seeing it again at its screen to the whole world? I really have no words because as soon as I see the film, there's this long pause of tiny tears coming out because there's a mixture of gratitude, happiness, more responsibility. And I have no words, in fact, in my mind. But yes, I think the one... I mean, our journey captured so beautifully. I mean, I can't imagine it being put in such a beautiful film. Thank you so much. I mean, my words of gratitude are this much. Thank you, Hyogen. Thank you. Thank you, the G-PAP and Uppling team. But really, this is just the start and thank you so much. I really will leave it to the rest of it because I'll keep telling, thank you otherwise. But I think it puts on greater responsibility for all of us at TrashCon to ensure that the hope that is created is spread globally and we at least solve the problem to a good extent with, of course, the other warriors who are a part of Uppling and G-PAP. Yeah, so in a manner, I'll leave it to this because I really, as soon as I see the film, the first thing my mom felt was she had tears in her eyes and the same feeling was what I had sort of had and we can't put it in words. I really can't put such an emotion in words because it's just too much, too many emotions going on. So sorry. That's so great to hear and obviously super inspiring. I'm really glad, you know, you loved it and we all loved it. I think we can all say that we were inspired and yeah, just really inspired by your story. Now tell us a bit more about the experience of doing this film. Was it the first time that you were part of a project like this? And can you tell us a bit about the process? What was it like? Yes, yes, absolutely. So fortunately, at Trashcon we were fortunate because several media publications have covered us but it was more of a brief encounter. We meet them for one or two days and that's it. But with Hyojin and team and you know, when they were here we spent close to a week. We had lunch together, dinner together. It was almost like they're with us and you would see, I mean, the entire team was on waste. They were literally putting their hands into it and I was just telling them, I haven't seen anybody crazier than us and that just happened, they are a part of our team. So they were all over the machine and we were working on it and they could unearth such moments from our journey which we had frankly forgotten in Manila and I think it brings us a lot of gratitude because a lot of people, a lot of well-wishers, forums like uplink and G-PAP, these are the kind of supporting systems that have helped us to come so far and I think it took us back to that memory lane and it was a very immersive experience in Manila. I don't think we have ever experienced something like this and I think we now have a bond forever with most of the crew members, literally mom was having chai with all of them and you know, discussing and whatnot. So it was beautiful, it was an amazing experience for all of us at Trashcon. Oh, that sounds amazing. Well, Hyojin, over to you. Congratulations on this film, first of all. So what was your experience like spending day and night with Nevada, her family in the landfills? Tell us a bit more about the filming experience for you. Yeah, I mean, as Niveira said, actually our kind of friendship, as she says now, started like way before the actual shoot. We were in touch for a long time. We had several calls together. I think at one point I wrote her this like very long letter basically saying, I know you already said yes to the documentary, but I just want you to know that we're gonna be there all the time. You're gonna like turn around and we're gonna be there. Like I don't think you understand, like we're gonna really constantly be there. And when we were on the ground, we did eat lunch with them, dinner with them. I spent so much time with her mom who has such a like big fond part in my heart and I think everybody else in the crew also really loved it. I love spending so much time with them. I think on top of that, we got a lot of support from the local team. And as like the last slate in the film shows, this film was really a product of so many people's hard work. And I'm really grateful for the people on the ground there in Bangalore to kind of show us the way. And also it was really important for us to capture some of the stories that were happening on the ground as well as Niveda's story because we wanted to show kind of the impact of this trash issue rather than just the solution. And we wanted to kind of paint a really rich and deep breath of this issue. So without them, it wouldn't have been possible. And so what do you hope the audience will take away from this film? I think the really critical issue for us while making this film, something that we kept asking ourselves in the production room, in the editing room, was what do we want the audience to walk away with? I think the issue of trash is something that we all contribute to. I think to be human is to create trash. Unfortunately, every day we are all doing it, even if we don't want to. And I didn't want, the last thing that I wanted was that while it's very inspiring to see the journey of Trash Khan, and I wanted everyone to be inspired by this journey, I also wanted them to understand that they themselves had a responsibility in this issue because I didn't want the audience to watch the film and walk away and say, oh wow, we have somebody like Niveda taking care of this. So we're kind of off the hook now. I think that's kind of not what we wanted and that's not the message of this film. The message of the film at the end is very clear. She says, we're all like ants trying to fight this mountain of a problem and I really wanted that to get across to our audience members. Yeah, that was great. And Chris, as the director of G-PAP, why was it so important for you and your team to support this film, this production? Well, as I think both of them have said already, it is a mountain of an issue trying to deal with the plastic pollution issue. And years ago, the World Economic Forum came out with a report that said, if we don't address this by 2050, we'll have more plastic in the sea than fish. So you need people like Niveda to bring these entrepreneurial innovative ideas to life and what I really appreciated about her approach and as you saw in the film, there's so much fantastic thought that goes into this, but it's not just environmental, there's the social aspect as well and there is this whole opportunity. So what we've discovered with G-PAP is it's a systemic approach in order for us to address this, much like all the ants. We all have a role to play throughout the entire value chain. It's not going to be solved just by dealing with waste management. There's every aspect throughout innovation, upstream and downstream. What Niveda has done so brilliantly is connect those dots on the social aspect with the informal sector who are so critical to helping us address plastic pollution on such an important scale. And what I think what's beautiful about this film is that it will help hopefully to bring some of that inspiration to other innovators and entrepreneurs. You heard me talk about this isn't the first time, I had to try many times and that's a real powerful statement I think there too because she's tried and tried and she's built something so incredible and it is inspiring because again, that social aspect with the informal sector but also then supporting the schools and the children in the community as well. So it's really bringing so many people together in a way that is really aligned with what we've been trying to achieve at G-PAP. And can you talk a bit more about the importance of investing in innovation like TrashCon? Yes, I think when we did our analysis and trying to think about how do we address plastic pollution and we look at that holistic picture, innovation is one of the key aspects. Both upstream and looking at reuse models, refills, so new business innovation but also clearly downstream as well. Whether that's with collections, sorting and recycling, which all three of those come into context here with Niveda and so really as we think through this and frankly, just like you said, we need to be innovative in our own behaviors as consumers. So how can we also shift our consumer, our consumption patterns to also address this but thinking through those very different kinds of innovations so many times we do focus very, very minutely and yet it's a massive issue and innovation should be seen throughout. And again, one of the things I really admire about what Niveda is doing is that she's really bringing so many different aspects to that innovation, to these new business models as well as a new way to recycle and a new way to use what was before not recyclable plastic. And Niveda, what do you hope the audience will take away from this film and your story, your journey as an entrepreneur? So I think, Immanuel, if you asked me five years ago or when we started back in 2017, there were many times when I wanted to give up in the first three years because it was just very hard for any social entrepreneur to figure out so many aspects to it. But what I want the entrepreneurs now to take with them, especially if you're trying to create an impact using technology or otherwise is that there are, there is a lot of support available out there, right? I mean, you're not alone, you're not alone battling it because when I started, I was thinking, I'm battling it. You know, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a warrior standing in front of this and I'm battling it, but that's not true. I think there is a huge amount of support available globally. For example, I'm playing G-PAP. I wish I knew it when I began. And there are systems that will help them through every part of their journey. They're supported. There are people who want to solve the problem. They're not alone. And it is just that when you have the right intent and maybe the right team, everything falls in place. I think that's what my mom said. Things will fall in place. Back then I would have laughed and said, yeah, you will save this. But now when I look back, I feel that's, that's absolutely true. And today more than ever is a time when we need hundreds of more innovations to come up so that we possibly could have a chance to stand against this huge mountain as we, as we talk about at the basement. So I think, I think thank you again. I mean, this is, this for us, it's a huge responsibility on our shoulders for other entrepreneurs who are watching this. It is just that start wherever you are, whatever you're thinking. If you're thinking of solving a problem in your community, in your place, then get going. There's a lot of support available. So that's, that's what I would like to leave it. Okay, great. And how has uplink helped you so far in this journey? Yeah. So just, just like I was mentioning it, it was already an integral part of my, a promise for me talking about what, what entrepreneurs can take ahead with them. So nobody can do this alone in Manuela because there are multiple aspects to this problem. Doing a normal business is considerably more understood. It is already, there is a benchmark, you know how to do it. When you're a social entrepreneur, you need to have a platform where you can connect with other social entrepreneurs, where you can understand, you know, the global policies where you can, you know, be a part of the advocacy where you can, you know, see, see how you can network with like-minded investors, communities, customers and get them on board. Now, if I have to summarize all of this in one single platform, I think that's uplink. And I was absolutely, I loved everything. And when I was a devils and I was spending team with the uplink team, I was just coming up with so many ideas I should do this and that and whatnot. So I think uplink is an amazing platform which is actually addressing what every social entrepreneur needs to the dot. And I think in times to come, all of us, I think uplink is more like the army builder of warriors against the mountain. If I have to summarize that, and of course, I mean, if I have to talk about G-PAP, it's the same thing because we need a neutral organization which is neutral to everybody, to the corporates, to the government, to the innovators to take a stand and say, hey, we are bringing it all together. I still remember sitting with Christine and saying, Christine, what is the solution? And then we concluded that there is no one solution. There are hundreds of solutions. I still remember I got this line when I was talking to Christine. So I think it's amazing that we encountered this, Emanuella, we encountered uplink and G-PAP. And I think in times to come, this will be bringing many of the innovators together, young, old, small, big, all of them together. So I really am rooting for it in a big way. And of course, many Indian entrepreneurs, I hope, in times to come. And now what's next for Trash Crown? I'm sure everyone wants to know. Oh, yeah. So while Hyojin was here, we were preventing 500 tons of waste a day. Today we are, as we speak, we are adding 1,000 tons of waste a day because I don't think that was capture. So we're adding 1,000 tons per day. We have already exported to Philippines. We are starting two more countries by the next year. And we are very well on our way to that 25,000 tons per day that I was talking about today. It's more of just scaling up the entire process because we have already understood and we have standardized our technologies fairly. And we're very happy to share that we are getting calls from across the world, who are really under this distress and we are happy that we are able to provide them the solution. I think it's international exposure. It's scaling up to the target number that we have in mind in the next three years. OK. That's exciting to hear. That's incredible, in fact. And thank you so much for being here, Nevada. We really appreciate it. We're so inspired by your story. And we look forward to collaborating with you. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you, Hyojin, for being here. It was a great discussion. And yeah, that's it for today. So the documentary is now available to watch again on the Uplink website. And there, you can also find information about Nevada, Trashcon, and the 300 or so other pioneering innovators who have recently joined Uplink's Innovation Network. Now, also on our website, you can find a blog authored by Nevada and other content about solutions to the global waste problem. So go to uplink.weforum.org to learn more and to join our entrepreneur movement. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.