Sameed Anis was entering the food packaging business a year ago, but his conscience was not right: the distribution of plastic cutlery.
And so, ECOPAK was formed by Sameed Anis.
“The problem arose when, whenever I saw myself giving plastic to someone, I felt it was wrong because plastic is not good for health,” Anis told Geo.tv at Karachi Eat 2020.
He said whenever people use plastic with a hot item, it turns cancerous. “So your food becomes cancerous; to save one rupee, you turn a Rs100 biryani into a cancer,” he added.
“I decided that plastic was forbidden to me and I entered the eco-friendly cutlery.”
When he talked about the idea of opening such a company, he stated that after finding none in Pakistan he looked around the world for a solution. “I found a solution abroad, and I said that[ to Pakistan] this would also come here,” said Anis.
But he said many people in his country told him that he’d not succeed in his business. “Somebody told me,’ No one was going to purchase it from you,’ but I started from a restaurant and I’ve got twenty-five restaurants to buy it from me.
Regardless of that, many people praised his efforts in his stalls. “I’ll give those to the Ayesha Chundrigar Foundation (ACF) free of charge and, if anybody wants to pay, I tell the young man to make donations.
It is better to use one eco-friendly spoon than 10 plastic spoons, so that it will degrade later too, “he noted.” It’s completely free. I take one and so much of it that it is so strong you’ll have the whole festival.
He has all the support he needs at home and among his peers. Some of them had actually turned up to assist with their stall in the morning.
On the other hand, he stressed that many restorers “question me why they should spend on this[ eco-friendly cutlery] because their customers don’t have any plastic problems.”
He said that the restorers could afford but were insensitive. “I want people to know now and complain that restaurant owners offer them quality products that are not good for health or the environment.
“When people ask for it [there’s demand], the restaurant-owners will find it feasible to spend on eco-friendly cutlery,” he added, determined to continue working for change.
“And I know that if not now, then in at least two to three years, this trend would become popular and everyone would shift to it.”
