Kathmandu, June 22 -- Most of us believe that waste is the end of a story.

A notebook is useful until the school year ends. A calendar matters until December. An office document serves its purpose and is forgotten. Once something enters a dustbin, we rarely think about it again.

For Aruna Lacoul and Muna Shrestha, the founders of Jamarko, it is where their story begins.

Long before Jamarko existed, the two sisters paid attention to something that was mostly ignored. They were observing the burden of waste around them and wondering whether something useful could still exist within it.

"We were observing the growing environmental burden of waste around us and felt compelled to respond in a practical way," they say. "We had limited capit...