WHY WASTE?

Changemaker: Garvita

Country of Implementation: India

Why Waste? is an organisation changing mindsets and transforming institutions by making them more water positive. Today, Why Waste? is India's largest youth-led organisation working towards water conservation by bringing about a mindset shift. The Why Waste team carries out a variety of activities which are focused on widespread water conservation.

Their most popular movement is the viral - Glass Half Full concept (more below). They have even written a book of sustainability stories to aid underprivileged students in understanding the global climate crisis which they distribute for free. Furthermore, their modules focus on changing people's lifestyle through simple actions in order to conserve a large amount of water. Their concept of “How to save 100 litres of water everyday” is now being adapted into an app, in order to help people change their water habits for the better. Having open-sourced the Why Waste concept, they have been able to grow it to cities across the country and are this year opening chapters in the US, Mexico, Europe, Philippines and Oman.

Why Waste?’s work has helped prevent  over 8 million litres of water from being wasted, impacted over 100K restaurants across India and several more globally, and impacted over 2.5 million lives.

It was founded by Global Changemaker, Garvita, at the age of 15 (now 20) in pursuit of solving the global water crisis by coming up with simple solutions and changing the way that people perceive this resource.

How to save 100 litres of water everyday

A module designed for anyone and everyone to learn how they can save 100 litres of water every single day by just changing their habits in small ways.

Glass Half Full

14 million litres of water is wasted every single year in the water that we leave behind in glasses at restaurants. An optimistic way of looking at water , the (now) viral "Glass Half Full '' movement brings about a more positive approach towards water conservation, inspiring people to take only as much as they need and not waste. Through this, they fill the glasses only half instead of full so that people take only as much as they need and don’t waste. This movement has reached over 1 lakh restaurants across India and is growing to many more countries globally.