For 18-year-old Shivansh Sarin, agricultural residue was never just waste. Growing up in Amritsar, surrounded by farming communities, he saw a problem that has become a familiar part of India’s environmental conversation: farmers burning crop residue because it is the quickest and most affordable way to clear their fields.

The consequences, he realised, go far beyond the fields.

“Crop-residue burning contributes to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, while repeated burning can also affect soil quality. Yet for farmers with limited affordable alternatives, simply burning the residue remains the most practical option”, said Shivansh.

Instead of accepting that as the status quo, Shivansh decided to explore whether the same agricultural waste could be turned into something valuable.

His school-level prototype, which is now ready, demonstrated the generation of electricity from agricultural residue using thermoelectric generators. He now wants to take the concept much further through AgriVolt Carbon Al, his idea among the Top 40 candidates of Samsung’s flagship CSR programme Samsung Solve for Tomorrow.

The proposed solution combines sensors and Artificial Intelligence, including Reinforcement Learning, to optimise the processing of agricultural residue. The aim is to maximise the recovery of electricity and biochar, while also exploring the production of carbon-rich materials that could eventually have applications such as activated carbon or carbon black.

At its heart, Shivansh’s idea is about changing the equation around agricultural waste: from something farmers need to get rid of into a resource that can potentially generate energy and create economic value.

A problem he saw beyond the headlines

The idea began with something Shivansh was seeing repeatedly in the news.

“Every year we see air pollution. News channels show how agricultural waste burning is contributing to it. But it is not just one place — it is a common problem across the country,” he said.

His research took him beyond headlines and into villages around Amritsar. He met village heads and spoke to communities to understand whether a solution such as his could work on the ground.

The response gave him confidence that the problem was worth pursuing.

Farmers, he says, were receptive to the idea of a young person from their own state working on a problem that directly affects their communities.

For Shivansh, those conversations also changed the nature of the project. It was no longer simply a science experiment built in school. It became an attempt to understand how technology could be designed around a real-world need.

Turning a school experiment into a larger ambition

The next challenge is scale.

Shivansh envisions AgriVolt Carbon Al as a system that can use real-time sensor data and AI-based optimisation to make the processing of agricultural residue more efficient. The larger goal is to create a circular approach in which crop waste can generate useful outputs rather than being treated as something with no value.

Electricity could provide one benefit. Biochar and other carbon-rich materials could provide another, with potential applications in future carbon-based products.

For Shivansh, the environmental case and the economic case are closely connected.

“If farmers are burning agricultural waste, they are also affecting the fertility of their soil. I want my idea to help with both — the environment and the farmers,” he says.

That ambition reflects a broader shift among young innovators: looking beyond technology for technology’s sake and using skills in AI, electronics and engineering to tackle problems that affect communities around them.

Shivansh’s journey began with a school prototype. His larger ambition is to develop it into something that could offer farmers an affordable alternative to burning agricultural residue — while converting a persistent environmental problem into a potential source of energy and value.

For a teenager from a city surrounded by farms, it is also a reminder that innovation does not always begin in a large technology company.

Sometimes, it begins by looking at a problem happening in your own backyard and asking a simple question: what if this could be done differently?

Some memories fade with time. For 17-year-old Novain Shibu, the memory of water rising through Kerala during the devastating floods of 2018 never did.

He was only nine then, but the images of flooding around Chalakudy, a town near his home in Thrissur, stayed with him. Years later, those memories have found an unlikely expression, not in a textbook or a classroom project, but in a working prototype designed to make one of the country’s most complex infrastructure systems smarter.

Novain’s idea, AcoustiNode Systems, has earned him a place among the Top 40 candidates of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, a CSR programme that is increasingly turning the spotlight towards young innovators whose ideas emerge far beyond India’s traditional technology hubs.

For the teen, the journey began with a simple question: Could technology help prevent the kind of devastation he had witnessed as a child?

“I used to read a lot of stories in the newspaper about floods and dams. I thought I can make a solution that can solve the issues related to large-scale dam management,” he said.

His answer is a proposed AI-powered edge network that uses resilient VHF radio communication to help manage dams even in challenging conditions. The system analyses upstream water surges and tidal reverse-flows to support two critical decisions: when water needs to be released in advance to reduce the risk of catastrophic flooding, and when unnecessary discharge can be prevented to conserve precious water.

The potential impact, Novain believes, goes well beyond the dam itself. Smarter water-release decisions could help protect downstream communities and ecosystems, improve irrigation security, maximise hydroelectric generation and reduce the enormous economic losses associated with floods and inefficient reservoir management.

But behind the technology is a youth who describes himself simply as someone who has always been curious.

“Since I was a child I loved asking questions, and my father loved answering them,” Novain said. “I built this habit from his support, where I could ask questions and have solutions from them.”

That curiosity eventually drew him towards robotics and advanced AI systems. Rather than stopping at an idea on paper, Novain wanted to build something tangible.

“I want to build real models that are workable and efficient,” he said.

The road to a working prototype, however, was anything but smooth. There were failed models, repeated experiments and moments when giving up seemed easier than starting over.

“I have failed so many times on my models and there have been days I didn’t want to work on it again,” he recalls. “But the next day I felt like restarting.”

What brought him back was the thought of the people who could one day benefit from what he was building.

“To be able to help people in distress kept me motivated,” he said.

Novain’s story also captures a larger shift that Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is enabling. Innovation is often associated with metropolitan laboratories, elite institutions and established technology ecosystems.
But ideas capable of solving some of India’s most difficult problems can emerge from much smaller towns and communities, shaped by experiences that are deeply local.

From a nine-year-old watching floodwaters engulf a familiar landscape to a 17-year-old building an AI-enabled dam-management prototype, Novain’s journey is a reminder that innovation does not always begin with access to a sophisticated laboratory. Sometimes, it begins with a question, a memory and the determination to keep trying.

And that is perhaps the most powerful promise of platforms like Solve for Tomorrow: to find these questions wherever they are being asked—and give the young people asking them a chance to make the rest of India listen.

When Aarna Gupta was growing up in South Delhi, pollution was something she could see, hear about and occasionally struggle to escape. But it became something far more personal when her grandfather developed lung scarring.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as her family made repeated trips to the hospital, Aarna began to see environmental inequality differently. She realised that the burden of polluted air is not shared equally—and that for millions of people, exposure to harmful air is not something they can simply choose to avoid.

That realisation eventually took her beyond her own neighbourhood.

Aarna began spending time observing construction sites and speaking with workers and children who live around them. What stayed with her was the everyday exposure: workers spending long hours surrounded by dust and debris, often without masks or adequate protection, while children living around construction sites were breathing the same air.

She also noticed another consequence that rarely makes it into conversations about construction pollution: children missing school because of health problems.

“For me, it became about understanding how environmental inequality impacts people who are out there every day,” Aarna says.

At just 17, that question has led her to Aeroshield, a prototype designed to turn one of the most familiar features of a construction site—the scaffold net—into an active layer of protection against airborne pollutants.

The idea has also taken Aarna into the Top 40 of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, Samsung’s flagship CSR programme that gives young innovators a platform to develop solutions to real-world problems through mentorship, resources and access to an innovation ecosystem. For Aarna, the programme is an opportunity to take Aeroshield beyond an idea and work towards making it viable at scale.

A scaffold net that does more than contain debris

Construction activity contributes nearly 30% of urban emissions and generates large quantities of airborne particulate matter. Conventional dust-control measures can be temporary, resource-intensive and difficult to maintain under the harsh conditions of active construction sites.

Aeroshield takes a different approach.

Instead of simply containing debris, the proposed low-cost net is designed to capture and degrade pollutants. A starch-based superabsorbent polymer (SAP), synthesised through graft copolymerisation, is designed to trap airborne particles through capillary absorption and electrostatic forces.

The captured pollutants are then targeted for degradation using photocatalytic materials engineered with oxygen deficiencies. When exposed to sunlight, these materials generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), creating a pathway to break down trapped pollutants and potentially contribute to the degradation of certain greenhouse gases.

The result is intended to be a construction net that does not merely stand between a construction site and the surrounding environment—but actively works to reduce the pollutants passing through it.

Importantly, Aarna says the ambition is not to create another complicated system that construction sites would struggle to adopt.

Aeroshield is being designed around existing construction infrastructure, with roller-line manufacturing envisioned to make the solution scalable while reducing water use and keeping production costs low.

The prototype is now ready.

A teenager thinking beyond the prototype

For Aarna, however, the technology is only one part of the ambition.

Her larger goal is to see protection for construction workers become part of a broader regulatory shift.

She wants basic protection from construction-related air pollution to become something workers can expect—not something they have to ask for.

“If a labourer feels safe, productivity improves,” she says.

That belief has shaped the way she thinks about Aeroshield. The objective is not innovation for innovation’s sake, but commercial viability: a solution that can be affordable, manufactured at scale and integrated into the way construction already works.

Her journey has also been shaped by the people closest to her.

When Aarna found herself unable to spend as much time outdoors because of pollution, her parents encouraged her to channel her curiosity into science. Her mother, who ran an education centre for children with special needs, also gave her an early understanding of how differently people experience the same environment—and how important it is to design solutions around those who are most vulnerable.

That combination of personal experience, scientific curiosity and social observation has become the foundation of her work.

Aeroshield began with a question about pollution.

It has evolved into a much bigger question about who gets protected from it.

From one girl’s observation to a larger vision for India

Aarna’s journey reflects a larger shift in how India’s young innovators are approaching environmental challenges: not simply asking how to make technology more sophisticated, but how to make it useful, accessible and capable of changing systems.

For Aarna, the answer lies somewhere between the laboratory and the construction site.

The cloth she first imagined has evolved into a technology designed to harness sunlight and accelerate the breakdown of pollutants. The problem she first saw through her grandfather’s illness has expanded into a concern for workers and children exposed to polluted air every day. And the prototype she has built is only the beginning of what she hopes will eventually become a commercially viable product and, ultimately, part of a change in construction-site safety standards.

At 17, Aarna is not claiming that one invention can solve India’s air-pollution crisis.

Her ambition is more focused.

She wants to make sure that the people who build India’s cities do not have to sacrifice their health to build them.

Because sometimes, a solution to a massive environmental problem begins not in a boardroom or a research institute, but with one young person noticing something everyone else has learned to live with—and refusing to accept it as normal.

About Samsung Solve for Tomorrow

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is Samsung’s youth-focused innovation programme that enables young people to develop solutions to real-world challenges through mentorship, resources and access to innovation ecosystems. In its fifth edition in India, the programme is supporting young innovators across four themes—AI Living for India, Health & Education, Environmental Sustainability, and Sport & Tech—as they develop their ideas towards potentially scalable solutions.

About Aeroshield

Aeroshield is an environmental sustainability innovation developed by 17-year-old Delhi-based innovator Aarna Gupta. The prototype is designed as a low-cost debris and pollution-control net for construction scaffolds, combining pollutant capture with sunlight-driven photocatalytic degradation. The solution is intended to be scalable, water-efficient and compatible with existing construction infrastructure.

On International E-Waste Day, Samsung India joined the global call for responsible e-waste management with a special awareness drive across its 1200+ customer service centers. The initiative, part of Samsung’s ongoing ‘Care for Clean India’ program, focused on helping consumers understand the importance of safe e-waste disposal and the small steps they can take toward a cleaner environment.

At Samsung service centers across the country, walk-in customers were engaged by customer care officers and informed about the hazards of improper e-waste handling. Awareness materials, including short videos, posters, and interactive discussions, highlighted how every responsible action — from returning old electronics to recycling accessories — contributes to reducing electronic waste.

Customers were also encouraged to take a pledge for responsible disposal, symbolizing their commitment to protecting the environment. As a small token of appreciation, many received saplings or plant seeds — a gesture that connected the act of recycling with the idea of renewal.

International E-Waste Day is a reminder that sustainability begins with awareness. Through service centers, Samsung aims to make it easy for customers to learn about responsible disposal and take part in building a cleaner community.

Samsung’s Care for Clean India program provides consumers with simple ways to hand over old or end-of-life electronic products for safe recycling. Consumers can also request free pick-up services for large appliances such as televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines, irrespective of brand.

This International E-Waste Day, Samsung encourages everyone to take a small but meaningful step — pledge to dispose of e-waste responsibly.

To schedule a free e-waste collection, consumers can simply WhatsApp 1800 5 7267864.

Because caring for our environment starts with the choices we make every day.

More Information here:

There are all kinds of waste – Plastic waste, Domestic Waste, Chemical waste, Solid waste, Bio degradable and non-biodegradable waste and all of it is right in front of us. No wonder that during Solve for Tomorrow roadshows, some of the most discussed and relevant topics among GenZ were issues related to waste management.

Team Planeteers

Riya, Akshita and Nikita

“Once you learn how damaged the waste management ecosystems are, it’s not really something you can unsee,” said, 19 year old Riya P Dey, an engineering student from Uttar Pradesh. “To me doing my bit to save the environment is the biggest priority right now.”

Riya is a member of team Planteers who are working on an Underwater Autonomous Vehicle that will have the ability to detect micro and nano plastics (and their concentrations) and filter them out of natural water bodies, while Marine Conservers are designing a self propelled boat that will aid in garbage collection on rivers.

Riya, Akshita and Nikita’s research on the subject led them to the conclusion that with their unparalleled functional properties at a relatively lower cost, plastics have become the ubiquitous propellant force of modern society.  “The microplastic and nanoplastic pollution collectively called micronanoplastics is highly toxic to the environment,” said Akshita.

Team Aero Scientist

19-year-old A Sai Ajay from Andhra Pradesh has an ambitious plan to get rid of the debris in space. He is highly motivated to work in the field of space environment.

Ajay from team Aero Scientist

Ajay is an aerospace engineering undergraduate, with technical knowledge on designing, analyzing and simulating software for better understanding of waste in the space.

“There are six challenges unique to the space environment we deal with gravity, the atmosphere, vacuum, micrometeoroids and debris, radiation, and charged particles. My aim and plan is to design a system that will remove space debris,” said Sai Ajay.

Marine Conservers

Oceans play a fundamental role in mitigating climate change. The sea absorbs harmful toxins and releases oxygen. Proper waste management systems can help preserve ocean health and reduce an economies overall greenhouse gas emissions by 10-15.

Durga, Charan Sai and Venkat Subba from Team Marine Conservers

Durga, Charan Sai and Venkat Subba, a trio of 19-year-olds from Andhra Pradesh are designing a self-propelled boat that will aid in garbage collection on rivers. They call themselves the Marine Conservers.

“Marine plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues, as rapidly increasing production of disposable plastic products overwhelms the worlds ability to deal with them. Millions of marine lives are dying due to plastics every year. We are in dire need of an immediate action,” said team Marine Conservers.

Team Green Ranger

Mayur Patel is a 21-year-old engineer from Gujarat. The only member in Team Green Ranger wants to create a mechanism of garbage collection robot which will work closer to home – in our rural and urban public spaces.

Team Green Ranger

Mayur’s solution aims at reducing human involvement during waste collection, resulting in fewer health concerns. It will also help waste management bodies to minimise total waste material costs.

“The robots would be useful in both rural and urban regions, resulting in better and healthier ways of waste collection,” said Mayur.

NSS Team

“When you can’t get rid of something that is not useful, transform it into something relevant.”

“As a science student, I have grown up working around this philosophy and I am so glad I have found the perfect teammates in Sujitha and Nanda,” said Sai Supriya from Team NSS based in Andhra Pradesh. These three 19 year-olds are taking an inventive approach to plastic disposal by turning it into strong paper that can be used for packaging, and will be biodegradable.

Sujitha, Nanda and Sujitha from team NSS

Their plan is to create a scheme called REPLAN, where the processed and de-structured plastic is mixed with cotton fibre rags and then it undergoes multiple stages of treatment to produce a pulp that is turned into paper. Because of its strength and durability, this paper can be used for creating cartons as well.

In our next article, we’re excited to bring you the details of more entries received under Environment. These Top 50 entrants will now attend a 3-day bootcamp at FIIT-IIT Delhi campus, where they will receive expert advice, guidance and mentoring.

Here’s everything you need to know about Solve for Tomorrow’s innovation themes –

Education: Enabling education for a sustainable tomorrow remains pivotal to India’s economic growth. With Samsung India, the pillar represents a window of opportunity for participants to contribute to self-reliance and support a better livelihood for thousands of people across the country. By 2030, India aims to eliminate gender disparity, upskill the number of youth and adults, and ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development.

Environment: Climate change is disrupting national economies with massive carbon footprint and ever-rising temperatures posing a serious concern. Under its Solve for Tomorrow program, Samsung India aims to empower participants to combat the disproportionate impacts of this global phenomenon. The pillar seeks to strengthen adaptive capacity to climate-related calamities and find solutions to save our planet for future generations.

Healthcare: Poor health is a major contributor to mental illness and deprivation amongst individuals. With Solve for Tomorrow program, advents including the eradication of diseases, addressing new challenges like COVID-19, global access to medicine and vaccines, and current and new health emergencies, are some of the key areas that need innovation.

Agriculture: India’s key livelihood agriculture, shares a major chunk of the overall GDP. The sector, however, is still dawned with challenges like deteriorating natural resources and climate change. With this program, the prospect to overcome hurdles extends to thinking wisely about enhanced hybrid varieties and implementing improved management practices, which conserve soil and water resources apart from other solutions.

Samsung believes in using innovation to positively transform communities and create a better life for people. This transformation will be led by the youth and empowering them through education and technological innovations is one of the best ways we can prepare our youth to boldly face the world of the future.

Samsung’s latest education and innovation competition Solve for Tomorrow is teaming up with India’s youth power to bring in the transformations that India needs today, strengthening our vision of Powering Digital India.

Solve for Tomorrow, a Samsung citizenship initiative, is inviting India’s brightest young minds to come up with innovative ideas that can transform the lives of people and communities around them.

The inaugural edition of Solve for Tomorrow aims to provide support to youth in India aged 16-22 years from across cities, towns and villages to turn their ideas into action. The competition is inviting ideas in the areas of Education, Environment, Healthcare and Agriculture, the priority UN Sustainable Development Goals for India.

Support will include mentoring of the top 50 teams (individuals or teams of up to 3 members) by industry experts and Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT Delhi) to help enhance their ideas, along with a boot-camp at IIT Delhi, a certificate of participation, and vouchers worth INR 100,000 for online courses in design thinking, STEM, innovation, leadership, among others. The top 10 teams will get the opportunity to visit Samsung India offices, its R&D centres and Samsung Opera House in Bengaluru where they will interact with young Samsung employees and researchers.

The annual program will end with the grand announcement of three national winners, who stand a chance to get mega support of up to INR 1 crore and mentoring support for six months to take their ideas to the next level under the expert guidance of IIT Delhi.

Participants can apply for Solve for Tomorrow, get detailed information on the program and terms and conditions at www.samsung.com/in/solvefortomorrow, starting June 09, 2022 till 5 pm, July 31, 2022.

Mr. Ken Kang, President and CEO, Samsung Southwest Asia, said, “At Samsung, harnessing the power of youth is priority. This is what drives us and our global CSR vision of ‘Together for Tomorrow! Enabling People,’ which seeks to empower the next generation to achieve their full potential and pioneer positive social changes. Solve for Tomorrow also takes us a step ahead in our vision of ‘Powering Digital India’ as the country’s strongest partner.”

“With Solve for Tomorrow, we aim to motivate and nurture creative thinking and problem-solving among the youth and encourage them to find innovative technology solutions with a social impact. We want to play our part in strengthening the innovation ecosystem in the country, taking forward the vision of the Government and the people of this country,” he said.

Prof. Rangan Banerjee, Director, IIT Delhi, said: “With Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow initiative, we are looking at prospective innovations with impact potential to address the future challenges faced by society. This partnership will enable young change-makers to explore wider opportunities and provide a platform for activating and nurturing their ideas.”

Solve for Tomorrow at a Glance

Who can participate: 16-22 year-olds, individually or in teams of up to 3

Application themes: Education, Environment, Healthcare and Agriculture

What will they get: Online training, mentoring from Samsung & IIT Delhi, Bootcamp at IIT Delhi

What do winners get: Total of up to INR 1 crore to 3 winning teams, mentoring for 6 months

Where can they apply: www.samsung.com/in/solvefortomorrow

From when: Starting June 09, 2022

Till when: Till 5 pm, July 31, 2022

Application Window – Round One

Individuals or teams of up to three can submit their applications on www.samsung.com/in/solvefortomorrow, where they will elaborate on the problem they are solving, the proposed solution and its social impact.

A jury comprising of subject matter experts from FITT, IIT Delhi will shortlist top 50 teams from among all the applications received, based on a selection criteria that includes the best use of technology (app, product or service), creativity, originality of idea, feasibility of the solution with current technology, potential to positively impact society or the environment and the potential to reach its intended target audience.

Idea Development – Round Two

In this round, the top 50 teams will be provided online training on design thinking and will attend a boot camp at IIT Delhi on developing a proof of concept. The teams will also get support from professors and mentors at IIT Delhi to detail out their ideas and start working on their early prototypes.

Each participant from the 50 selected teams will get a certificate of participation and course vouchers of up to INR 100,000 that gets them access to any online course relevant to design thinking, STEM, innovation, entrepreneurship, business skills, management and leadership.

Once teams submit videos on their ideas and prototypes, a jury panel of experts from Samsung will select 10 teams that will move to Round Three. The selection criteria for this round will include development of the idea since original submission, demonstrable use of research and/or testing to understand needs of the target audience, demonstration of design thinking and quality of presentation.

Final Prototype Building – Round Three

Top 10 teams will be given next level of online training covering topics such as prototyping and designing for manufacturing, introduction to business communication, funding opportunities and certifications as well as mentoring from experts at Samsung and IIT Delhi to prepare their ideas for the finale.

Teams will also visit Samsung facilities including its India Headquarters in Gurugram, its R&D centres in Noida and Bengaluru and the world’s largest mobile experience centre at the iconic Opera House in Bengaluru where they will interact with young Samsung employees and researchers.

At the end of this round, the teams will submit their final prototypes and prepare for a live presentation at the Finale Event in front of an eminent jury.

Top 10 teams will be given Samsung hampers worth INR 100,000, which will include exciting Samsung products.

Samsung will offer a total of up to INR 1 crore in grants to three winning teams, getting them one step closer to turn their ideas into their dream startups that can help address India’s key concerns in the areas of Agriculture, Education, Environment and Healthcare.

In addition, winning teams will also get an 85-inch Samsung Flip interactive digital board for their respective schools and colleges.

With the grant, winners will get the opportunity to work with mentors from IIT Delhi for a period of 6 months and get access to an incubation centre at the IIT Delhi campus. During these 6 months, they will work on their ideas and take it to the stage where they can seek consumer validation for their prototypes.

First launched in the US in 2010, Solve for Tomorrow is currently operational in 33 countries globally, and has seen over 1.8 million young people participate worldwide.

Globally, participants in the competition have developed several innovative solutions, such as converting food waste into leather, a portable desalination device equipped with a solar panel to filter polluted water and using coffee grounds to as an alternative energy source to alleviate pollution, among many others.

To find out more and register for the competition in India, visit www.samsung.com/in/solvefortomorrow. Application entry closes at 5 pm on July 31, 2022.

Samsung believes in using innovation to positively transform communities and create a better life for people through its citizenship initiatives. Empowering youth through education is one of the best ways we can prepare our young people to boldly face the world of the future.

Samsung Electronics runs three citizenship programs globally – Samsung Smart School, Samsung Innovation Campus and Solve for Tomorrow – through which it is empowering the leaders of tomorrow and equipping them with the tools they will need to realize meaningful change.

The EPA annually recognizes the top performers within its SMM Program. SMM Electronics Challenge participants are rethinking product life cycles, committing to innovative and responsible electronics management, and reducing environmental impacts. The 2020 SMM Electronics Challenge Award winners will be recognized at a virtual award ceremony later today.

“Samsung is humbled by the EPA’s recognition of our long-term commitment to the proper collection and recycling of e-waste in the United States and the sustainable design innovations that we continue to drive in product packaging,” said Mark Newton, Head of Corporate Sustainability for Samsung Electronics America. “We will continue to make investments to further our environmental stewardship practices and reduce our impact on climate change as we strive towards a greener and better tomorrow.”

“The Electronics Challenge award winners are corporate role models creating new products that show environmental improvement can go hand-in-hand with other technological advances. EPA encourages others to follow their lead by implementing similar innovative approaches,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.

Samsung is one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers and fully embraces the responsibility that comes with our market position to effect change on a large scale to protect the environment. The EPA SMM Gold Tier Award acknowledges our excellence in e-waste collection throughout the U.S. Samsung annually collects and recycles approximately 100 million pounds of e-waste. Since 2008, we’ve recycled over a billion pounds of electronics, diverting them from U.S. landfills and recovering reusable materials.

The EPA SMM Champion Award in the Program Category recognizes Samsung’s innovative Galaxy S10 packaging strategies for its use of material in a more environmentally responsible way. The smartphone’s plastic-free box and interior packaging have been redesigned to reduce its environmental footprint and consume fewer resources. For example, the packaging includes an all-in-one pulp mold for the device and its components to minimize waste. Other adjustments include replacing plastic ties with paper materials. These design change have contributed to making the Galaxy S10’s packaging 32g lighter than that of its predecessors – a 16% packaging weight reduction.

For more information about Samsung’s sustainability efforts, click here, and to learn more about the EPA, please visit www.epa.gov.

“We have been launching such drives across the country and have seen massive participation from our regional offices as well. As a responsible corporate, we believe in preserving the environment for future generations. Electronic waste collection, plastic waste management or such cleanliness drives are all steps taken towards preservation and protection of the environment,” said Sameer Wadhawan, Head of Human Resources at Samsung India.

Over 100 employees participated in this Care for Clean India drive. Armed with cleaning gloves and garbage bags, the group took it upon themselves to rid the park of non-biodegradable waste.

“I am happy that we got the opportunity to participate in this noble activity. At Samsung, we believe in co-prosperity and giving back to the community,” said Jeon Woosung, Customer Satisfaction Team.

In the past, the company has organized tree plantation drives, plastic waste management campaigns across the country that have seen huge participation from employees. Samsung has been pro-actively taking measures to motivate its employees to become more environment conscious through such initiatives.