EarthSmiles.net - Our Projects

Our Projects

We're more than just a website!

EarthSmiles.net has been actively exposing greenwash since 2009. So, when we do "activity outside the website" we work to make sure it has a measurable impact!

In the last decade. EarthSmiles.net has done projects big and small, creatively awesome and downright boring practical... but the common thread in all our activity is - we want to make a real diference. And its only real if it is something you can measure! So, here is a list of some of the projects we not only loved to do/are still doing, but those with that magic measurability!

Projects: What we do with our "free time"

Offline activity around and by EarthSmiles.net

Revive!

Upcycling and giving access
Newspaper into pens, crown caps into keychains, bottles into lamps or PET bottles into a solar cooker... Revive! is a pop up exhibition and sale of EarthSmiles.net's collection of upcycled items, usually at schools. Other NGOs also attend with their green products, providing sustainable alternatives - now use green. Don't just talk about it.
Measure: Hundreds of pens, bottles and other items kept out of the landfil.

Puja Points

EarthSmiles Sharad Shamman
Held from 2013 to 2016, in a season filled with green awards, this was no ordinary Sharad Shamman. Months beforehand, EarthSmilers worked with selected Puja organisers across Kolkata, showing them how to reuse material, recycle, ban plastic, conserve energy, be inclusive. One puja would win the fabulous trophy of upcycled glass, (and a certification from our PlanetPoints programme) - but all would have taken a step towards being green.
Measure: No toxic paints, no wasted building materials, no plastic bags, segregated garbage, and more.

Big Blue Bin

One Bin to rule them all
Schools were tasked to place a "Big Blue Bin" to collect all sorts of clean paper, esecially the volumes generated at events. The paper was donated to NGOs who made paper products using the same. Many school continue the system, long after the campaign. Schools were also taught to make FileBins - Bins made out of old project file covers that are nomally discarded - to collect paper at the classroom level, replacing/supplementing existing plastic bins.
Measure: 100s of KG of segregated paper saved, scores of trees saved, litres of water saved and barrels of fossil fuel / energy saved.

Return2Life

New lease of life to used things
Return2 Life started in 2011 for unwanted electronics such as computers, extened in 2014 to books. Schools also donated new textbooks that publishers provide to schools hoping that their publication will be added to the syllabus. These unused copies were distributed to school children in other schools who needed them, free. Now R2L is providing drop boxes for students to dispose of pens they stop using. The shocker? Even expensive refillable pens were being discarded. EarthSmiles.net cleans, refill and recirculates the pens.
Measure: Trees saved, huge quantity of plastic diverted from landfil, unlike recycling, no major energy requirement.

Recycling

Easy Polybags and Paper recycling
From a simple, non-polluting way to recycle thin polybags through re-purposed equipment to designing and training schools and NGOs to make handmade paper, EarthSmiles.net innovates to keep the planet green, and also generate sustainable livelihoods - all our tech is imparted through our workshops to appropriate NGOs.
Measure: An NGO uses the polybag recycling tech to convert tons of discarded polybags into stationery like files and pencil pouches; while another uses handmade paper to create a variety of products for sale.

Green Gizmos

Low cost green alternatives
An efficient Air Filter for less than Rs. 3000 is in final stages of development, with urban pollution levels off the charts, everyone needs protection, not just those with the big bucks. EarthSmiles.net's SUNCUK Solar Box cookers - able to cook for a family of 3/4 - have been produced and widely distributed in North india by an NGO, where Solar radiation can be reliably captured 90% of the year. EarthSmiles.net continues to experiment with green cooling technologies and much more.
Measure: Cost of treatmeant for pollution related ailments, saving fossil fuel for the cooking of dozens of families.

Eco-Champs!

We, the Greenagers of India...
Starting at a high School near EarthSmiles.net's office, we invited students to be campus ambassadors for all things green. Special badges were design and given only to those pledging and actually doing gree activity on the campus. This is now one of the most planet-friendly schools in Kolkata, and batches of students continue to become "Greenagers" doing much good in their surroundings, and spreading the same out of the school, too.
Greenagers activities are recorded in the GreenAge Blog
Measure: Actively choosing a greener lifestyle and hosting greener evens with hundreds of participants, offsets KGs of carbon.

Paper:
BACK

Saving paper, one scrap at a time
While paper is one of the most recycled materials in India, certain types of paper are shunned by recyclers, and /or just don't reach them. The big candidate is small papers - tiny bills provided by mall, stores and eateries, tickets and ATM slips, etc. Huge volumes of this sort of paper are generated and discarded daily - often within seconds of receiving them. Paper:BACK operates a weigh-in where schools are asked to bring this sort of paper, collected by them, and are given a receipt for the amount in KGs. At the end of the year, the school with the most small papers collected, recieves a special trophy, usually at Greenathon, a school eco-fest.
Measure: Hundreds of KGs of paper saved over 4 years of the campaign.

Trees

Nurturers not just planters
When Green for Life Foundation took on the ambitious plan of planting an urban forest at Rajerhat, they called on SayTrees, Bengaluru, a record holder for urban plantations. The EarthSmiles.net team were priviliged to be invited for the training held by SayTrees for G4L Kolkata, and became the first volunteers to assist G4L in planting and nuturing the trees. Our sustained Social Media campaign also brought in other volunteers to the project, some of who became stalwarts of G4Ls programme over time - and the beautiful 3-acre green zone at Rajerhat is testimony to their efforts.
Measure: The impact of 10000+ native, carbon sequestering trees, being nutured till fully grown in an urban area,

Corporate Outreach

Green after Grads
While EarthSmiles.net's primary focus has been students, several corporates, especially IT companies employ a large youth workforce. Taking the opportunity to "Green after Grads" EarthSmiles.net has done workshops, quizzes and even full "environment week" activities for corporates at their locations. Our green products are often also procured for these companies to gift to their employees, etc. We see this as one great bridge between our primary focus and the rest of citizens of Planet Earth!
Measure: More people using green products, and being introduced to sustainable living. Allowing corporates to invest in the environment in a relatively easy way.

Green Community

Movies that inform and inspire
Creating green communities is one way to solve the global climate crisis. When likeminded people come together, share ideas and get the required information and support of their peers, green things happen! We like to believe in a small way we contribute to this movement through our Green Gettogethers, where we invite small groups of people to come together, discuss, share some organic/local food over a movie show, on an environmental theme. We encourage others to do the same!
Measure: Rolling impact of small groups, informed and receptive to living sustainable, planet-friendly lives.

PlanetPoints

Our Eco-enable label
Many organisations are doing great things and we hear of "green events" and "green products". But how much is really an attempt to be green, and how much is mere greenwash?
Blowing one's own trumpet is one thing, but a qualified look by a third party, makes all the difference when it comes to trust. Here's EarthSmiles.net's PlanetPoints Eco-enable Label comes in. In 2013 we began to compile event specific criteria to create technical documents allowing us to evaluate our "Planet-friendly Puja" project. This gave us expertise to help other types of events, be truly green - or Planet-friendly, as we call it. Unlike other 3rd Party Eco lables, we don't merely label - we work with the party to ensure their event meets our criteria: eco-enable.
Measure: Reduced carbon footprints, mainstreaming of green credentials.

Youth Advocacy

Earthsmiles.net uses it website, social media and direct outreach at schools and youth institutions to green young minds.

Green Action

From recycling polybags and used paper to upcycling PET bottles, to creating pens made of newspaper - Earthsmiles.net works to keep stuff out of the landfill.

Green Tech

Experimental solar cookers, an efficient and low cost home air-purifier and other fun green gadgets keep innovation high on the Earthsmiles.net aganda.

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