Experts call for youth-led recycling solutions

Islamabad: The two-day Hackathon hosted by the Institute of Urbanism (IoU) to work out best possible solutions to sustainable waste management emphasised the need to utilise waste as a resource for co-creating solutions for promoting youth-led recycling in the cities across the country.

The Hackathon organised under the programme Green Urban Development (GUD) jointly initiated by Institute of Urbanism and School of Leadership Foundation with the support of the US Embassy Islamabad from March 2-3 was attended by the representatives of academia, youth, researchers, media, government and private sector.

The aim of the hackathon was to find solutions to introduce at-source waste segregation at household level in cities while integrating the informal waste management stakeholders in a socially and economically just manner. The speakers at the forum highlighted that Islamabad generates approximately 1,575 tons of municipal waste daily, whereas low recycling rate, plastic waste generated in the city is estimated to be 14.26 percent of the total waste. Moreover, there is also lack of availability of updated waste-related data to come up with the need-based waste solutions, and no policy at the national level existed which may provide a comprehensive framework for waste minimisation or utilisation of waste as resource.