After a year of research, she created the Gul Bahao (flow the flowers) project.
With her "team of environmentalists", Latif devises ways of using rubbish to create houses, water reservoirs, fodder for livestock and instant compost.
"This hasn't been easy," she says. "I realised I had to dedicate my whole life to it. Once you commit, you can't back out." [...]
Gul Bahao started off 22 years ago with an "army" of more than 70 boys from Uzbekistan, who helped Latif collect plastic, vegetable and fruit peels, and other material from all over Karachi.
In 2004, Latif established a research centre on government-owned land in front of some shack homes. She recalls how trucks and minivans would roll out of it in those early days. [...]
Everything the project creates - from shelters to tables, chairs and toilets - consists of waste plastic inside a thermopore shell. The plastic - "virgin", as Latif calls it to differentiate it from other rubbish - is mostly confectionary wrappers that factory owners have rejected due to printing issues. They form "bricks" that are then tied together to create the finished product. For the pillars of the shelters, the bricks are tied with wooden poles which are fitted into a roughly two-foot deep hole in the ground.
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