2. What is a social entrepreneur?
• People who recognise a social problem and go
out of his way to organise and create a
venture, in order to solve the problem.
• As compared to business entrepreneurs
meausuring their success by amount of profit,
social entrepreneurs measure their
success according to how much
society has benefitted.
3. Social Problem in New Delhi
• The quantity of waste generated in India is far greater than the country’s capacity
to collect, manage, and absorb it.
• New Delhi generates four thousand tons of waste a day, of which 15 percent is
plastic.
• Every ten years, the city has to find a new site where it can dump its garbage.
• The people of lowest social status,ragpickers, live in poverty everyday due to their
extremely low income.
• These people live in unhygienic living conditions and are prone to many diseases
spread by pests which thrive in their slums.
4. Social Entrepreneur – Anita Ahuja
• Anita focuses on two issues: Delhi’s plastic waste crisis and
the community of ragpickers who collect and separate
garbage, including plastics.
• Her organisation, Conserve, creates large plastic sheets from
discarded plastic bags using a process Anita invented and is
currently in the process of patenting.
• These plastic sheets are then fashioned into
products such as diaries, bags, raincoats,
and umbrellas.
5. Social Entrepreneur – Anita
Ahuja(cont’d)
• Conserve’s handbags are sold at several high-end retail shops
in London, and in the European stores of such well-
established labels such as Benetton.
• The ragpickers are directly hired by Conserve, paid sufficiently
and educated on the importance of the part they play in
recycling.
• This way, they are brought out of poverty.
Products made of recyled plastic
6. Benefits of Anita Ahuja’s Venture
• By creating products out of recycled materials and selling
them at high end stores, Anita not only alleviates the waste
problem in New Delhi,but generates a considerable amount of
profit.
• Also, by hiring ragpickers and educating them, she brings
them out of poverty, and gives them a brighter future.
