Recycle & reuse

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Recycle & reuse

Sunday, 14 November 2021 | Shalini Saksena

Recycle & reuse

From developing a medical app to help people find a doctor that they want, to an innovative and versatile app created to provide recycling solutions, there is no stopping this Class VI student, says SHALINI SAKSENA

When Pranet Pahwa, earlier this year,rdeveloped an app XDOC+ to help a patient find relevant doctor, he was confident that there was no stopping him and that there would be more from him in the coming few months. Sure enough nine months down the line, this Class VI student of Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad has comes up with an innovative app — Heal the World. The app, he tells you, has been created for recycing solutions.

According to statistics, India generates about 60 million tonnes of garbage every year. Out of this, 45 million tonnes of garbage remains untreated. Therefore, it is the need-of-the-hour for us to look for immediate solutions and engage everyone in the drive to protect our environment.

“This app has been designed to offer solutions in that direction. it is unlike other recycling apps because it creates awareness among people, especially kids about waste management in a fun and engaging manner. However, th app has not gone live and is still there is lots to do before it can be used by people. It is in its testing phase. It is under registration. It may take a couple of months to get this done,” Pahwa says.

The app, one i told has three section — Know More; Have Some Fun and Play Your Part. The know more section has two buttons — why recycle and how recycle. In these two section people will get o know everything there is to know about why one should recycle and what is the easiest way to do. There are a few videoas that people csn watch to get an idea on how to go about it. These videos, Pahwa tells you have been taken from the Internet or YouTube that give an in-depth information about these two questions.

In the Have Some Fun, there is a a quizz and two games. The games are on ways to recycle and garbage collector.  In ways to recycle, is a drag and drop game. In the second one, people, as the name suggests, collect garbage.

“The Play Your Part is a premium section. Here, people have to log or sing up. This has sections as well — three — kitchen compost, beach clean drive and ways to wealth. There are videaos here as well. For example in kitchen compost, there are  videoas that are helpful. A unique feature here is that people who log in can request for a visit and be taught all there is to know about composting,” Pahwa exaplains.

In beach clean drive, there are a few campaign listings that people can be a part of. A member from Pahwa’s team ensures that the person is registered for that particular campaign. All this is done via constant monitoring on part of the team memebers.

In ways to wealth, people can connect with NGOs. The idea here is to raise money that can do directly to the NGO of their choice when it comes to saving the nvironment. The drop down menu in the app has a list of NGOs from which people can choose. The money goes directly to them.

The idea of the app with so many sections is to engage with the kids in a fun manner and education them about waste management. For the dults, the donate section is a way through they can connect and do their bit.

Interestingly, the idea for this app came when Pahwa was travelling from Faridabad to Delhi. He was shocked to see mounds of garbage just they were enterting the Capital.

“It was a huge mountain just of garbage. I thought to myself that it was strange that one should have a mountain garbage right outside the Capital. It didn’t sit me with well. I wanted to do something about it. I felt if all this garbage has been reduced, recylced and reused, it would not be  mountain today. I spoke with a few friends of mine. The app was born. I have four people in the tea, Each team member has a definite duty to perform. I am incharge of Play Your Part. Everytime there is a mail concerning this, I have to track it,” Pahwa says.

However, this is not the first time that Pranet has been recognised for his inguinity. This time as well his team and he have been recognised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US as the winner of MIT app inventor Appathon for Good 2021. The Heal the World app was selected as the winner for People Choice Youth team. The team was aware of the process of registration and did the needful themselves.

The app is not just restricted to reduce, recycle and resue of garbaage or plastic, it also includes e-waste. “We all know that there is no way that it can be recycle by people on their own. We tell people let us use it in a good way instead of ending up as e-waste. The app has an e-waste menu as well. Here, one can donate things to people who need it or take it off your hand,” Pahwa says.

He is already in talks with his friends for the next app. What is it going be? We will just have to wait and watch.

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