KARACHI: When climate activist Ahmad Shabbar began working in garbage collection a few years ago, he was startled by what he found buried among the city’s waste: hundreds of books, from primers used in schools to novels and encyclopedias, discarded like ordinary trash.
A nuclear physicist from Reed College and a mechanical and energy engineer, Shabbar runs GarbageCAN, a waste management company focused on recycling and sustainability. He said he realized there were tons of books in good condition coming out of the trash, making him feel as if people were “throwing away a treasure of knowledge.”
The realization marked the beginning of a project, one that led him to preserve nearly 4,000 discarded books and transform salvaged materials into a living, breathing library.
“We removed the books from trash and gave them a second home,” he said in a conversation with Arab News, sharing how his efforts culminated this month in the opening of the Second Home Library – The Earth Pod, a community space in Karachi built entirely from recycled and natural materials.
The picture posted on September 17, 2025, books lying on libaray floor in Karachi, Pakistan. (Construct Earth)
