Why two Canberra sisters have made helping the environment their business
Posted on
If there was ever a time to feel anxious about climate change, these last several months have definitely been that time.
Between the choking smoke from the NSW fires that wafted over Canberra with the easterly each night for months and the terrible hail storms that left cars and properties ruined across the city, the effects of the environmental crisis have been hard to ignore.
For my sister Zaheeda and I, the past few months have been the perfect motivation for us to finally launch the business we’ve been working on for the last year—a business that has been driven by our desire to make some kind of positive impact for our planet.
Last week we finally launched Aasha Keep Kits—our way of trying to drive change and to help protect our beautiful environment in the wake of these crises.
It’s no secret that single-use plastic is one of the biggest issues facing our natural environment. And it’s also one of the few areas of climate change where our individual actions can actually make a difference.
Unlike carbon emissions and deforestation, where the biggest impact has to be made by governments and major corporations, reducing plastic waste is something we can all contribute to.
But, despite our best intentions, it can be hard to remember all the bits and pieces we need to say no to plastics when we’re out and about.
An Aasha Keep Kit.
It’s easy to forget to bring a metal straw, cutlery, shopping bag, and a keep cup whenever you leave the house, and then there’s the issue of where to put your dirty stuff after you’ve enjoyed your smoothie or takeaway curry in the food court.
Zaheeda and I wanted to create something practical and sustainable to make it easier for good people to do the right thing – so we came up with the ‘keep kit’.
Our Kits are stylish, custom-made bags that come with a full stainless steel cutlery set, straws, straw cleaner, a shopping bag, collapsible keep cup, and a waterproof pouch to store your used items in until you can get home to clean them.
The whole thing weighs around 500 grams and is small enough to fit easily into a handbag or backpack.
We spent six months finalising the design with a local bag manufacturer and then sourcing all of the items that go into the kit. Now we have a very limited number available for sale, and we’re already investigating options to make the bag itself biodegradable for next time!
An Aasha Keep Kit.
It’s really exciting, but for us, it’s especially important in the aftermath of the fires and the floods that we do something practical to help.
Zaheeda has three beautiful daughters, and being an aunt is one of my favourite things (we have a niece and nephew from our brother as well, so it’s a big brood!). When we look at the kids, we genuinely worry about what kind of future they’re going to have.
We’ve been so lucky to grow up in Australia and to enjoy the stunning natural environment we have in this country. Like so many other Canberrans, we grew up travelling to the south coast in the holidays, and hiking in the national parks on the weekends.
We used to stop the car when we drove interstate to peer up at koalas nestled in the treetops along the side of the road. We hand-fed kangaroos that grazed on our front lawn, rescued injured cockatoos and galahs, and followed the slow trundle of echidnas we spotted when out walking.
(L-R) Zoya and Zaheeda.
It’s shocking to think that maybe our kids won’t remember these animals by the time they’re our age. That maybe the coast will be ravaged and ruined by fires and rising sea levels.
That maybe the wildlife we love will be choked on straws and plastic bags in the ocean, and have their habitats ruined for landfill to house all the waste we create.
Aasha means ‘hope’ in sanskrit. When we were thinking of a name for our company, it immediately came to mind, because that’s the feeling we most want to preserve—a sense of hope for our future, and the future of our country.
But hope is only as good as the action that follows it. We hope we can make a difference with our Keep Kits—after all, change only happens through millions of individual actions.
An Aasha Keep Kit.
You can check out Aasha Keep Kits at keepkits.com.
Leave a Reply