As Marta’s life ground almost to a halt due to the pandemic and her maternity leave, she wondered, “What would I be interested doing?” She found her answer in the environment protection.

Marta seriously considered it for the first time when Lviv faced a garbage removal crisis, and garbage bins were overflowing everywhere in the city. When she traveled across Europe, she was surrounded by people for whom separating glass from plastic and paper was second nature. Later, on maternity leave, she decided to find out more. She read books, studied, and started sorting her waste. Having gained experience, Marta brought the philosophy of eco-consciousness to work and the residential complex where she was living: she opened a garbage sorting station in both places.

This article is a part of a series of materials about corporate social responsibility at SoftServe. If you want to know more about our CSR activities, click here.

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Photos of plastic in the ocean no longer work. How to explain to people why environmental issues affect everyone

BY MARTA PETRYCHKOVYCH | PROJECT MANAGER

In the Facebook group of the residential block that is Marta’s new home, 150 people responded to her poll and suggestion about organizing garbage sorting.

“The most important thing I realized when helping people to be more eco-conscious is that everyone has their own motivations, so you need to take a personalized approach. I explained to some neighbors that you can earn money for recycling waste and reducing the amount of mixed waste, which they have to pay to remove. I motivated my friends simply by saying that this way they would generate less rubbish,” Marta explains.

With the money received from the recycling, the residents plan to buy tree saplings or repairs: in other words, to spend it on the improvement. The amount of mixed waste from her building has dropped by five percent, even though many neighbors have been carrying out renovations and taking out a lot of construction debris every day.

Her success inspired others: some residents joined Marta, and the idea was picked up by new neighbors, inspired to start their life in a new place with new habits. Finally, Marta was approached by residents of another building to help them organize a similar space. Marta is now hoping to meet with the city administration to propose a recycling program that would be run centrally at the city level, and use her small success story to inspire the entire city of Lviv to change.

“Every day, a garbage truck picks up four garbage containers from outside our building. They disappear from view, and we no longer see them, but they do not vanish into thin air: garbage is dumped onto the fields and forests to just lie there. I’m not a chemist or a biologist, but it takes a long time even for organic matter to decompose, and we are throwing out metal and plastic. They can’t just decompose and dissolve,” says Marta.

Marta believes that to understand the impact of environmental issues on your own life, you simply need to observe what happens to the garbage right where you live. She notes that photos with mountains of plastic floating in the ocean no longer work: they are perceived as being too far from home to have an impact.

Instead, when she joined the eco-picnic organized by Chysto.de at the Vilshansky Reservoir in the Carpathians, it affected her so much that she still cannot get that image out of her head.

“People from the local villages just throw garbage into the river. They even have a saying: the water will take away everything. The river carries everything down to the reservoir, which is called the Carpathian Sea, forming islands of plastic. At first, from a distance, I thought it was snow, but it was autumn outside. We cleaned up and sorted the garbage, I posted a video, and many of my acquaintances wrote that they were shocked and wanted to do something to help. All these personal conversations, photos and videos inspire people to change; they rethink their actions, their consumption and waste management habits in general,” she says.

At the same time, Marta realized that criticism and unsolicited advice do not help at all when you want your words to have an impact on people.

“I’m often told that I’m but a drop in the ocean. Yes, I’m but a drop in the ocean, but drop by drop, as my great-grandmother says, the water grinds the stone. And now I completely agree with her. If you are fully invested in what you do, other people will take note. They are infected by your energy and your ideas. They begin to think about these issues and ultimately take action”.

Marta eventually brought these ideas to SoftServe.

Being eco-friendly is a global trend that should be supported.

SoftServe experience

Little by little, with baby steps, Marta turned SoftServe into an eco-conscious company. First, she placed different garbage bins for different types of waste in the kitchen. Then she held a webinar for employees, where she talked about what happens to the sorted garbage, because many people do not believe that there is any point in separating waste. She patiently explained the importance of this small but important change to all the company’s employees.

SoftServe also began working with Zero Waste Lviv. Together, they launched a calculator that calculates the benefits of using reusable hygiene products.

“Other companies have made apps to track garbage collection. There are many such initiatives, and I think we will see more of them in the future. With today’s technologies, we can present all kinds of important information more visually, with the facts, and this helps us to bring people together for a common cause,” Marta explains.

Another challenge is the stationery given out at events, and disposable tableware in kitchens. It takes time to change habits. But SoftServe, like other companies, is taking the first steps: it is asking its staff to bring their own cups for the water coolers, and give out pencils or paper pens at conferences.

Marta is convinced that this is a global trend that should be supported, and it’s inspiring that SoftServe does it.

“And looking at the big picture, this is all about our health. In Beijing, they have to wear masks all the time because the air is so polluted. And this fate may await us too in the distant future. For instance, our company consumes a lot of electricity. We all breathe in the associated emissions near our office. People’s health will deteriorate, and companies will have to spend more on benefit plans. However, the employees of SoftServe are very conscientious. It is about values, not just material things. We need to leave the world in a better state than we found it,” says Marta.