Lack of sanitation facilities in public spaces has led to people in both rural and urban areas to release themselves openly, thereby, creating unhygienic conditions and living spaces for the surrounding environment. Ashwani Aggarwal, a Fine Arts graduate from Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, had identified this problem long back in 2014, while he was still a college student. Therefore, as a part of their college project, he, along with his teammates, Aditi, Ashu, Yuva, and Sahaj, came up with an initiative called ‘Basic Shit’, through which they created a clean and safe environment for public sanitation by installing public urinals and toilets.
Presently, their initiative has developed into a full-fledged organisation working towards a circular economy by recycling trash through innovative waste management solutions. They aim to set up toilets at major public junctions in townships and agricultural fields, as well as a single-use plastic recycling facility. They aim to efficiently dispose of human wastes by converting it to urea, which can again be used in agriculture.
The organisation’s upcoming sustainable solution is a Squat Stool made of jerrycans, plastic bottle caps, single-use plastic parts, kitchen foil, and recovered iron, which is their own way of dealing with the indiscriminate use and disposal of plastic throughout the world. India itself generates around 25,940 tonnes of single-use plastic every day. In fact, over the last 10 years, the country has generated more plastic than during the whole of the last century. Basic Shit’s aim is to take small steps in the right direction and change all of that. Moreover, the stool is also used as an utility add-on to existing toilets in order to heal people’s posture, thereby improving the internal architecture of the human body, as well as various stomach-related dysfunctions.
For more information on this initiative, you can have a look at their website.
Check out their Instagram here.
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