Smoking has been one of the major root causes of air pollution, land degradation through its waste, and injurious to human health. It also kills thousands of animals and birds thereby clogging water bodies. Two Noida-based men in their twenties Vishal Kanet and Naman Gupta have, however, found an innovative way ever to recycle cigarette wastes and have come up with a Noida based company Code Enterprises LLP. They regularly collect waste from their customers and recycle each and every component of the remaining cigarette. And the best part is that customers can earn some money in return for just collecting and handing over cigarette waste to them. Let us know how..
CODE
Conserving Our
Depleting Environment
Company that offers a
One-stop solution for
Degrading
Environment
ADDING VALUE TO WASTES
Code is a zero-waste company, so every inch of the waste that comes in has to be recycled. It provides steel bins, VBins (Value Bins) and collects cigarette wastes at Rs. 250/kg.
They separate the cigarette wastes in three components
Butt
Paper
Tobacco
Both paper and tobacco are organic and mix well with the soil. Observing this very interesting fact, the young entrepreneur thus turns the wastes into soil manure. Besides, the butts are made of cellulose acetate, a plastic filter used in the cigarettes that is non biodegradable. The “Filter” is reused after 25 days of chemical cleaning. Code says that recycled filters are harmless. They are mixed with the cotton and then bean bags, cushions, soft toys, stuffed materials etc. are made out of it.
THE WORLD IS DYING
NEED OF THE HOUR
HABIT IS NEVER A CONCERN, UNTIL IT HURTS!
A single cigarette is as harmful to the environment as it is to the person who smoked. Around 6.5 trillion cigarettes are sold around the world each year, which translates to roughly 18 billion cigarettes per day. It is estimated that one billion smokers are present in the world.
The butt of a cigarette, discarded after smoking, is extremely dangerous and hazardous for our environment and tones of them are littered every day, which makes it the most littered item in the world. A single butt is enough to contaminate 20ml of water and kill marine life. These butts are made of a synthetic polymer called Cellulose Acetate, and they take anywhere between 18 months and 10 years to fully decompose. Cellulose Acetate is a non-biodegradable plastic filter that is extremely harmful to the environment.
AN EYE OPENER
The poised protagonists established their innovation in “Code”, in July 2016. It was when Gupta and Kanet were at their friend’s place which was full of cigarette waste, the idea to make something useful out of this waste sparked into their minds.
“We were shocked to see ashes in every bit of the corners and then a thought triggered our mind, ‘whether these dangerous ashes could be recycled’?”–Naman Gupta
SPREADING ACROSS THE NATION
MAKING IT POSSIBLE
KNOW HOW IT WORKS
Code offers a complete solution with a structured service package. Code garbage collector comes in every 15 days to pick the waste-full “VBins” at customer’s doorsteps. Nevertheless the low financial support, the innovators have netted a network of 3000 dedicated employees who currently work manually separating butts and papers and filtering ashes from the collected wastes.
Headquartered at Noida, India, Code currently enjoys its vast presence in over100 districts across the country including major places like Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Mysore, Bangalore and Karnataka, the maximum waste generator in India with cigarette waste amounting to 200kg/month.
“We really want to target North East states and hilly areas like Himachal Pradesh. Infact, we had our collaboration with Jammu also, but, it stopped due to certain reasons but we are willing to collaborate again with them”–Naman Gupta
FISHING THE TROUBLED WATERS
CROSSING THE BARRIERS
KNOW THE CATCH
HOPPING OVER THE HURDLES
“The most difficult task was to collect the butts. We had to wait one and a half year to collect heavy quantity of the cigarette butts. That became really tough as people were not aware about the idea, so at the beginning we were unable to receive the support”–Naman Gupta
When asked that whether generating business out of cigarettes is somewhere promoting “smoking” among the youth, Naman came up with a very subtle but strong opinion that they seed a sense of realization among the smokers about how much cigarettes they have consumed throughout the month, which basically plays like a shock therapy.
“We are so lucky to receive huge no. of support from media and public. But we need our government’s support to help us make more and more people aware. All the investments till date have been done by personal savings and family support. We have invested 50-60 Lacs approximately and have received only 50% of it till now”–Naman Gupta
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Code was among the top 50 startups in the list of 2016.
Code was on top 13 in the list of Pitch Right.
They are also invited in Ted X as a speaker on August 19.
40-50 articles have been covered till date by the national media about the Code.
Code has also received coverage from international media like Aljazeera.
With many possible risks, it is a welcome relief that someone is working towards a solution. With a lot of discussion and debate happening all around the world regarding pollution and global warming, this is an amazing and much needed initiative by these young professionals.
“LOOK FOR THE PROBLEMS AND SOLUTION WILL COME TO YOU”
“THE SOLUTION BEING THE BEST INNOVATION”