Home Startup Stories Timro Kawadiwala: Teen Entrepreneur Innovates Waste in Chitwan

Timro Kawadiwala: Teen Entrepreneur Innovates Waste in Chitwan

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Environment degradation has become a major problem worldwide. Tons of unmanaged wastes and tremendous use of plastic products has raise a huge question about the future of humans in this planet. Where millions of budgets are just revolving in the corrupted hands, there are these two teenagers who have initiated an action to contribute in environment conservation. Saugat Tiwari and Ashik Bikram Khadka are 19 years old teenagers who have started a waste collecting and recycling startup ‘Timro Kawadiwala’ in Chitwan with zero investment and huge aspiration for other youths.

Story Behind Initiation

Chitwan is one of the fastest developing district of the country. But the development process is moving on without proper plan, leading to unplanned urbanization and unmanaged waste. This fact made Saugat and Ashik concerned about the environment they are living in and collaboratively, they initiated the startup ‘Timro Kawadiwala’.


About Timro Kawadiwala

The startup had a motive to be a conciliator between the trash collector and local people along with different cafes in collecting solid wastes. Their plan was not to visit door to door themselves, but to collaborate with the waste company and provide the data and schedule when to visit the households to pick the waste by employing other people. They mainly targeted the hotels, restaurants and cafes of Narayangadh area which are the major source of solid wastes.

But soon the company realized that they were just managing the waste in very minimal level. With such small approach, they weren’t able to change the mindset of people, neither it made impact on people’s lifestyle. So, they redefined their motive and changed the entire module. Now they are working on R3- Reuse, Recycle and Reduce to contribute in zero waste and make visible impact. Currently, Sweta Dulal is working as a operation head in the company.

Challenges

Saugat is an engineering student of United Technical College, Chitwan. So coming from an engineering background, it was really hard for him to persuade his family to start Timro Kawadiwala at first. He shares, “ I really wanted to have my own start up despite of my numerical age. So it was really hard to convince my family, especially the relatives to believe in me. The flame got brighter when I said I want to work with garbage collection and it’s recycling. The often advice that I used to encounter was to focus on my studies and look forward for my career in the engineering field. They always thought that it’s not so called ‘Prestigious’ for an educated person to work with the wastes. Instead of getting discouraged, Such stereotypical thinking of the society motivated our team to start Timro Kawadiwala in any case. We not only wanted to establish an eco-friendly society, but also to implant the dignity of labour in the same society. We are happy that , after a year of struggle, we have finally seen a noticeable change in the people’s mentality.”

Customer Response

“When your motive is clean and for the bright future of other people, then there is no doubt that these people will join gradually to hold your back. We are so happy with the positive compliments from our customers. There amazements on seeing the recycled products push us to work harder.” said Saugat.

Future Plans

Highly motivated with the bright future ahead, the team is looking forward to making more productive items from waste. and also expand the outreach. 

Saugat shares, “Currently, we have just started recycling to make useful things from wastes like wine bottles and tyres. But we are working on to recycle more waste into more productive items. Similarly, right now we have shared office of Timro Kawadiwala with Timro Express in Pulchowk. So we are also planning to expand our space in Sauraha area with an aim to attract more tourists toward our product.Ultimately, we want to help in making Nepal a zero waste nation.”

Messages to the youth

Addressing the need of active youth participation for the nation development, Saugaat emphasized, “ Today’s youth should be more conscious about their contribution to the society rather than following the fancy trends. It’s really sad that most of us have cultivated a misconception that opportunities lie only in the foreign land and we need to be of certain age to do something great. But the truth is, let’s break the glass! Age has nothing to do with our potentiality. Just believe in your dreams, team up with the like minded people and be persistent with your hard work. If you really want to achieve a goal, than Nepal is the best place to start with.”

By: Ruby Shah
Startup to support #skill2grow4life