From Waste to Wealth

When the spotlight fades from new projects, the waste they leave behind becomes someone else’s gain.

- Zeeshan Hassan

I have always been fascinated by what people throw away.

We like to believe that only the core of a thing matters, like machine, furniture, or road itself. The rest, the outer layer that protects it, feels useless once the work is done. In our minds, the covering is just waste.

At home, I sometimes reuse these leftovers. A soft drink bottle becomes a vase. A cardboard box stores old photographs. But this habit is rare.

Many of us still feel awkward using what looks discarded. We have learned to think that reusing is a sign of need. Somewhere along the way, our sense of value got trained to see waste as worthless.

In government offices, this blindness takes on a bigger shape.