SUSTAINABILITY SPOTLIGHT | 42 SUSTAINABILITY SPOTLIGHT | 43 The plastic pollution problem the authorities’ advice, buildings were equipped with Diversity is a defining feature of Nepal, encompassing corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) sheets for roofing Fr plastic asteboth cultural and geographical elements. With altitudes instead of the previously common stone shingles. As ranging from 70 to over 8,848 meters above sea level, a result of this change in construction methods, many many inhabited areas face challenges connecting to Nepalis are now only shielded from the elements by a TO BETTER HOMESrobust waste-management systems due to the rugged thin sheet of metal. topography. Trekking is the only way to transport things While CGI sheets are lighter and safer than traditional from A to B, and villagers find it dicult to take the roofs in the event of an earthquake, they have little to waste back to town. Across the country, it is common oer in the face of summer heat, winter cold and the to see open fires for plastic burning that produce toxic noise of torrential rain during the monsoon season. fumes, especially where households are out of reach of The noise is often so severe that it has a detrimental  Nepa collection systems because of the rugged topography. eect on the quality of sleep and education, and the Where plastic accumulates in large landfills, burning lack of protection against temperature extremes is leads to even greater harm, including the deaths of a risk to health. Furthermore, most Nepali homes livestock in the area. rely on firewood for heating and cooking, meaning The plastic pollution problem co-exists with two other deforestation has become a significant problem. significant challenges: poor housing and deforestation. Innovation stems from dissatisfaction Generally speaking, there is no concept of thermal and sound insulation in most Nepali homes. As a From an outsider’s perspective, these facts indicate consequence of the devastating 2015 earthquake, that Nepal is facing numerous significant challenges, all which left nearly 3.5 million people homeless, new of which could have adverse eects on the populace’s homes were built to a very basic standard. As per standard of living. However, when Curie first visited the country, she observed that the internal perspective diered from the external one. “Nepalis are the happiest people ever!” she says. “People have a humble and grateful attitude to life, and they don’t like being stressed. Coupled with the belief that nothing is impossible in Nepal, there is a feeling that everything will be OK, but there is no rush to change the things that are not working. If I had just parachuted in with this project money and told people what to do, it would have been an easy way to alienate the locals.” Every day, another 600 tonnes of plastic waste end up littering Nepal’s streets and Aligning the two perspectives meant that Curie had to mountains, often with dire consequences. The country has seen a dramatic increase tread carefully and remember that the project should in plastic imports over the last decade, and although they are a resilient, convenient be done by the locals, for the locals, with the local and versatile group of materials, plastics require responsible management to prevent waste. For the duration of the project, her role has damage to people, animals and the environment. Dr Curie Park, of the Centre for been that of facilitator, lowering the threshold for local Industrial Sustainability, set up the Plastic to Ghar (P2G) project in 2022. “Ghar” means entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to fruition. “house” in Nepali, and the aim of P2G is to set up local innovation capacity to tackle Nepal’s plastic waste problem by turning it into a solution to other pressing problems. With support from the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution Programme (SMEP, funded by UK Aid and UNCTAD), which covers 13 intervention areas in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, Curie and the local teams are about to enter the penultimate phase of their project, which sees plastic waste transformed into useful Ad-hoc maintenance of CGI roofing in local houses in housing materials, and communities transformed into hubs for innovation.remote villages