Made Impossible Dreams Come True: Nivedha R.M. (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Nivedha R.M.’s talk titled “Made Impossible Dreams Come True” at TEDxWestfordUniSharjah conference.

Nivedha R.M.’s inspiring TEDx talk showcases her relentless journey towards solving the monumental problem of waste management through innovation and perseverance. She begins by highlighting the dire situation of waste accumulation, emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable solutions. Nivedha shares her initial setbacks with prototypes that aimed to recycle unrecyclable materials, underscoring the challenges of creating a viable product from waste.

Despite numerous obstacles, including limited funds and skepticism, her team’s determination led to the development of a revolutionary material that mimics plywood but is moisture-proof, termite-proof, and fully recyclable. This innovation not only offers an eco-friendly alternative to traditional building materials but also demonstrates the potential for waste to be transformed into valuable products.

Nivedha’s journey is a testament to the power of dreaming big and the impact of tenacity in the face of adversity. Her talk leaves audiences inspired, illustrating how impossible dreams can indeed come true with dedication and a forward-thinking approach.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello everyone, this is Nivedha, and before I begin my talk, I wanted to ask you something. You see this here, any guesses on what this is? Plywood. Plywood, okay. MDS. MDS, okay. Now, can you guess what this is? Can you see it? Now, anybody? Particle board. Particle board, okay. I will come to what this is after telling you my story.

The Problem

You see, where I come from, our cities are surrounded with mountains, mountains of waste which is larger than the largest of mountains that you would have possibly seen. It looks like this. Of course, it stinks and it looks bad but the most horrible part is that kids are born with respiratory cancer near these landfills.

Yes, I have seen a landfill, imagine a mountain of waste burning in front of my eyes. It has choked residents. It is causing all kinds of illnesses. We are not talking about a small problem that can be solved one decade later. It is already taking life and it is not a small number. We are talking about 2 billion tons of waste being dumped every year. Just to give you a comparison, it is equal to 4000 Burj Khalifa. That is how much waste we are dumping every year. Now, big problem, huge problem, killing life.

Seeking Solutions

There should be a solution, no? To find the solution, you should know the root cause. What is the root cause? Even a 5-year-old will tell that it is plastics, right? Plastics all over us. But you see, plastic in itself is not a problem. There are many synthetic materials, right? Plastic is a problem when it looks like this. Can you see it? Can you see plastic? There is plastic and food and diaper and sanitary napkin and dead rat and glass, everything sticking on to it. Now, this is not something anybody in the world can recycle, can make value out of.

That is why it ends up on the streets in front of my house, it goes to the dump site, it gets burnt. Right? Because if plastic can be recycled or put into value and goes back into the economy, there is no issue. Only when it is on the streets, it leaks and goes into the ocean. And this is over 95% of all the plastics is trapped in waste like this on the streets of developing countries.

So we had an idea. What if we build a bot that can recover plastics from this waste? Of course a bot, not manually. It is not practical and it is not human for somebody to be touching this. So that was the idea. So, we started to build a bot to solve this impossible challenge. This was my first bot.

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The Journey

It was this big. This big. Right? And it could take 50 kgs an hour. 50 kgs an hour. Big deal. Right? 50 kgs of waste went in, but only 5 kgs came out. 45 kgs got clogged. Completely clogged. Why? Because waste is so difficult. Look at your own waste. You know there is food, there is diaper, there is sanitary napkin, everything. So how can a system handle everything? So far the systems were handling only one thing. This has to handle everything. Big challenge. But of course, we had taken it up, so we had to persevere and keep going. Right?

Yes. So we kept going. We kept working. And we came up with a bigger plant. Now this could take 200 kgs an hour. And yes, we did resolve the problem of clogging. And yes, we could decently recover plastics from that waste. Or that’s what we thought. We could recover plastics on day 1. Day 2 it was back to zero. Waste was going and waste was coming in as it is.

Then we realized the biggest issue. Waste is so dynamic. Look at your own dustbin. Every day it changes. Today you have a lot of plastics. Tomorrow you have a lot of food waste. How do you create a system that can take everything and give out a consistent output? It’s like taking all the unknown variables and giving out known variables. It’s almost like a black box.

Breakthrough and Challenges

It’s impossible. And that’s what people said. But again, somebody has to solve the problem. So we kept going. Because we believed in ourselves, we kept going. Of course, during this journey, it took days, months, years. During this journey, I was blessed with a great co-founder, a small passionate team who believed in this crazy dream that I had. But almost every other day I wanted to give up. I wanted to badly give up because it was an impossible problem to solve. And it was quite evident with all the trials.

But ladies and gentlemen, over 3 years of shooting in the dark and not coming close to the solution. After nearly 3 years, we came up with TrashBot. TrashBot is a bot that can take the waste of the streets and recover plastic beautifully. And not at 50 kgs an hour, not at 250 kgs an hour, at 250 tons per day. That is what we could achieve.

And not only were we recovering plastic from that waste so that it can be recycled, we were also recovering the degradable waste so that it can be composted, metals. And so, from waste that had no value, we were recovering materials that could be made into value. It was a big moment. This was the moment we were waiting for. This was the moment I had sacrificed 3 years of my life. And this was a wow moment. Everything was right in place. We were showing the machine. Everybody loved it.

A New Problem

But then we were in for a surprise. Not a pleasant one. Not a pleasant surprise. You see, the plastic that we were recovering looked like this. What is different about this? What is different about this is this is the plastic that you and I consume every day. These are your chips packets, your biscuit wrappers, your food packets that you consume every day. These are called multi-layered plastics. We got to know at that time that these are called multi-layered plastics. This is 75% of all the plastics you and I consume and throw out every day.

Now what is interesting about this is that it seems it cannot be recycled. It cannot be recycled. So these are called non-recyclable plastics. And that was the reason why it was in the streets in the first place. You see, the bottles that we are drinking from are valuable plastics. Everybody wants it. This, not even a waste picker wants. So that means all these 3 years of hard work and, you know, sacrifice and tears, all to get something that nobody wants. That was a huge slap in our face. Of course, it could be used as alternate fuel instead of coal in some kilns. But that was solving a problem to some level. But it was not making business model. It was not sustainable. You see, if something is not sustainable and scalable, we are not solving the problem.

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Continuing the Journey

We could have stopped here. We could have thought, okay, I have done as much as I can. Let this replicate. But as long as it is not sustainable, you are not solving the problem. And we really, really wanted to actually solve the problem. But, come on, what are we talking about? We are talking about now, there was a small voice in my head which said, but what if we can recycle it? This is a foolish thought, right? I mean, because how do you recycle that which cannot be recycled?

Okay, suppose you had this dream. On top of that, I had no funds. I had a small team. The first product barely started. So anybody in their sane mind shouldn’t have continued with this thought, right? But I think by now you know what we would have done. We did exactly that. We could not turn our backs. We had to solve the problem, right?

First Prototype

And this is how our first prototype looked like. I know, it doesn’t look anything like a technology prototype. But for some reason, this gave us hope that we could recycle what cannot be recycled, for some reason. And what this gave out was something that looked like this. This is like a burnt pancake, right? Nothing close to a commercial valuable product. Again, we should not have continued. But for some reason, we could not stop.

So we continued. We continued and came up with this. You see this? This is an 8 feet by 4 feet sheet that is exactly like plywood. But it’s moisture-proof, termite-proof, and most importantly, can be recycled again and again and again. So you can make everything here out of it. The tables, benches, desks, doors, everything can be made out of it. But the most important thing is that after you use it, you can take it back and recycle it again. So we didn’t solve a problem and create a problem. We actually solved the problem.

Overcoming Doubts

But, again, there’s a lot of buts in this journey, but customers said, hey, this is good, I like it, good vision, but you know, we still are not getting familiar with this product. So we did not give up. We continued and came up with this. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we made out of the waste that was in front of my house on the street, which is burning and killing lives. This is what we made. It looks like plywood, feels like plywood, and better than plywood.

But the most important part is that we made it affordable. Green or sustainable doesn’t mean premium. We made it affordable so that everyone can choose a better product. And we didn’t stop there. We continued because there’s unlimited raw material. We ended up creating another product, which is an alternative to timber. Why not? And replace timber, right?

Creating an Ecosystem

But as we did this, if you see what we have created, is an ecosystem of solutions that not only recovers plastic from what was considered an impossible waste, but we ended up recycling what cannot be recycled and ended up creating value from what has negative value. That is a business model made out of something that even a waste picker doesn’t want. That is what we ended up creating.

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But we didn’t stop there. We are today, as we speak, preventing 1,100 tons of waste from entering the landfills every day and impacting 2 million lives in two countries. If you ask me, was this my most favorite moment, my most beautiful moment, because you have created the ecosystem, you have actually solved the problem, shouldn’t this be my happiest moment? This was still not the happiest moment.

The happiest moment was when we provided benches and desks, tables and chairs, bathrooms, to nearly 10,000 government school kids. Thank you. The happiest moment was when we provided 10,000 school kids benches and desks. But this helped them improve their retention rates. They were not able to sit on cold floors, so there was a high dropout, so we could help.

The Vision Comes to Life

But again, I happened to be in one of these schools, and I asked a nine-year-old child, do you know what this is made of? And believe me, I had not told her anything about plastic and recycling or whatever. And the child says that the plastic that went out of my house has come back as this bench and desk. This was our vision. This was our dream. This is permanent behavior change without uttering a word. The child forever knows that everything that she possibly throws out could be converted into value.

And this, my friend, was my dream, the only dream that I ever had, the only dream that kept us going through this entire journey, the dream that we slept with and got up with, a dream that 20 years down the lane, when I am telling a story to my daughter, saying, “Beta, once upon a time, there was trash.” And my daughter should say, “Mamma, what is trash?” And this is our vision. This has been the dream that we were working for.

The Journey Continues

But the most important part about this entire journey, if you ask me, am I closer to my dream? No. I am far, far, far away from my dream. And today, we cannot do it on our own. We can do it only when hundreds and thousands of us come together towards a common vision, common dream. But what I have and what we have created is a hope, a hope that this massive problem could be solved, that possibly 13% of carbon emission can be prevented and reduce the much needed heat, especially here in Sharjah.

But what I want to leave you with is just one thing. You saw my journey. You saw what we went through. You saw that I have done this without any support system, without any funds, without any understanding or knowledge. Throughout this journey, if you ask me, the one thing that helped us, it was to believe in our dreams.

So what I want to leave you with is just one thing that I know most of you here have dreams that may look very scary, that you have doubts about, that you fear. All I want to tell you is that stick to it. Stick to it against all the odds, externally and most importantly, from within yourself. And when you do that, you can create something that you yourself cannot imagine. And that is all I want to leave you with. Thank you so much.