How a Corpsmember Used his Stipend to Start a Successful Nonprofit in India that Upcycles Waste
This year C. Srinivasan was the recipient of Earthcorps’ Annual Alumni Award. Steve Dubiel, Executive Director of EarthCorps, recently took time to write us and explain Srinvasan’s inspirational story. Based in Seattle, Washington, Earthcorps enrolls participants in a year long program. Approximately half of its participants are AmeriCorps members and the other half are from other countries. In total, Earthcorps has alumni in 74 countries.
In 1997 we had the pleasure of welcoming C. Srinivasan to EarthCorps. He’s from India. While at EarthCorps, Srinivasan saved the majority of his stipend to launch a non-profit, Exnora-Green Cross Vellore (soon to be renamed Indian Green Service).
The driving goal for all of Exnora-Green Cross Vellore’s work is to “bring about socio-economic changes through employment generation based on environmental conservation.” Programs seek to utilize three abundant resources: sunlight, people power, and garbage. Srinivasan told me that “EarthCorps helped me to understand that the goal is not to isolate people from nature, but to help both coexist sustainably.” He further added that, “my real success in India is because of the field work I did with EarthCorps in Seattle.” Srinivasan provides a model for all of us to help educate people and “help them see the legacy (good or bad) that they will leave their children.”
Srinivasan’s organization has launched several initiatives, including a Zero Waste Management project. Using India’s people power, Srinivasan has developed an innovative model for transforming waste management. Instead of collecting and dumping garbage at great cost, Exnora-Green Cross Vellore has created a system that generates modest profit from waste collection by “upcycling,” or transforming nearly all waste into marketable goods. Waste is collected twice each day and sorted into approximately 200 categories. Each component is then developed into a marketable good that is sold to support the overall program. There are only about 10 items that can’t be recycled, including items like chewing gum, Styrofoam, broken ceramic, and aluminum candy wrappers.
Srinivasan and his team are constantly working to reduce the number of non-recyclables and have reached out to 1,000 companies (India, US, and beyond) working with them to redesign packaging and products to move closer to the goal of zero waste. This model program has the attention of the Indian government who has tapped Srinivasan and set the goal to replicate the program in 500,000 communities across India over the coming 3-5 years. Needless to say, this is an incredible success.
Srinivasan’s story provides a great example of how corps programs inspire young people to change the world and give them tools to succeed.