The JVT Community Blog recently caught with a neighbor, John van Zuylen, co-founder of Keep It Clean, a new company providing a unique recycling service and simple help with waste management  for anyone.

John has been in Dubai since 2009 and moved to JVT two years ago. Coming from Belgium, John was raised with a permanent “eco-conscience”. Arriving in Dubai, he was surprised by the way waste is being handled in the country, as well as by how little some people seem to care about the environment. One day at the beach, John realized how littered it was, mostly with cigarette butts. He started thinking about a way to help people do the right thing rather than simply complaining about the bad behavior of some. He felt that if you make things simple enough, everyone will make the small effort that can actually make a big difference. From that starting point, he invented “MrBin”, the trash bin for the beach.

After achieving some tangible success with this simple idea, John and his team of five were motivated to keep looking for more simple ideas that could improve people’s lives and the environment. After 3 years of operation, they now offer MrBin (for the beach),  CarBag and Bagoto, (trash bins for the car), and now most recently the HomeCycle service, which allows everyone in Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, to recycle at no cost and without even leaving their home!

The ultimate goal for Keep It Clean is to contribute to a society where we send “zero waste to landfills”. The leading example for this is Sweden, where 99% of residential waste gets recycled. When I asked John the best thing about running his own company, he said, “the beauty of our work is that we run a business and at the same time have a positive impact on people’s life. Every day we receive comments from our users telling us about how great this concept is, and as a business leader, this is extremely rewarding.”

What makes this service unique is that it costs nothing and they take the hassle out of recycling. No need to find the time to take your trash out by car, Keep It Clean comes to you !

It’s inspiring to see the many great projects that motivate the Villagers from JVT. John also told us how much he likes living here. “We have amazing neighbors, great tennis facilities, green areas and an easy connection to the main highways. Not everything is perfect of course, but compared to many other places, JVT is just unbeatable for us,” says John.

I haven’t tried the service yet but from what I’ve heard about it, it sounds like it couldn’t be easier to do. Create your profile on www.keepitclean.co and start recycling !