Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada city Municipal Commissioner, IAS Swapnil Pundkar, has devised a rather innovative method to deal with the city’s garbage littering issue.

Here, after due verification of facts, if a household is found dumping garbage on the streets, or in places where it should not, the Municipal Commissioner and his team tracks down the culprit and ensures that it is sent right back to the house, as a “return gift” from the city.

With about three weeks into the launch of what is being called the ‘return gift campaign’, Swapnil says that he is already getting to see a slight shift in the attitude of how people behave with respect to littering of garbage.

Speaking to The Better India, he says, “In Kakinada, we have almost 1200 sanitary workers, of which almost 900 of them are deployed to go door-to-door and collect garbage on a daily basis. Despite this, we found that people would take the liberty of dumping the garbage on the sides of the road or other such places.”

As a city, there is extensive monitoring and continuous surveys being conducted to ensure that the systems are working fine. Swapnil says, “We have installed RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags on the gates of houses in the city, which allows us to collect data on whether our sanitary worker has collected the garbage, if the household declined to hand over the garbage etc.” With this data, the team members were able to assess which houses were handing over garbage and which ones were dumping it on the road.

Need for change in mind-set

“The process of monitoring which households do not hand over the garbage and create trouble was something that was being monitored for almost three months,” says Swapnil. The team started with having discussions with the citizens and while some of them saw reason and accepted the system, some others were vehement in saying that they wouldn’t hand over the garbage to the sanitary workers.

Swapnil mentions that some of their reasons were rather bizarre. “From saying that because my house help is not available during the time the sanitary workers come for the garbage collection to saying that because a neighbour is dumping the garbage on the street corner, they will also follow suit — we have had to hear some very strange justifications for their actions.” The fact that the house gates are fitted with the RFID tags helps the team ascertain whether or not the garbage has been handed over every morning. Swapnil says, “There were some households where for almost three to four days no garbage was handed over. One cannot possibly collect so many days’ garbage and keep it inside the house and so we started tracking these households.”

“I could not see the streets of my corporation lined with garbage, and thus we started the ‘return gift initiative’,” he says.

Beautifying Garbage Vulnerable Points

Garbage Vulnerable Points (GVP) are those areas where the garbage gets piled up because of the constant dropping of garbage by local residents, travellers, passerbys or in spots that earlier had dustbins.

“We have identified places that are GVP and are working towards ensuring that we change that,” says Swapnil. In Kakinada, when Swapnil took charge in June 2020, there were almost 150 GVPs and with consistent work over the last five months, they have reached 50 GVPs.

“Our biggest achievement has been the conversion of the fence sitters, who have actively started working towards maintaining cleanliness and not dumping garbage anywhere they please,” says Swapnil.

Swapnil is confident that this initiative will help in bringing about the much-needed change in mind-set. “If everyone starts to follow the rules, even the few who want to deviate will think twice,” he says in conclusion.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

Madhur N Rathi, would’ve never thought that one conference on waste management during his MBA days would change his life for the better. Wanting to live a life of sustainability, he roped in three of his friends to make a living by recycling plastic into furniture that can further be recycled years later, in Maharashtra’s Amravati.

“Most of us use products from recycled plastic for an eco-friendly life, but very few know that these same recycled products can be recycled after years. Our brand Econiture’s products are an example of it,” Madhur, CEO of Recycle Bell Private Limited tells The Better India.

Starting from waste

With an initial investment of Rs 5 lakh each in April 2017, Madhur with three of his friends — Roshan Pidiyar, Bhushan Boob and Ashish Modak, established Recycle Bell Private Limited, a waste management company. Besides this, they also took a soft loan of Rs 5 lakh from another friend and a Rs 10 lakh loan from a bank to start the business.

During the initial days, the friends used to collect dry waste from different waste generators, including ragpickers, industries, shops, etc. The waste is then taken to a material recovery facility and segregated into 100 types of recyclable products.

“We sell these recyclable materials to different recyclers, who further recycle them for money. The recyclers use the recycled materials we provide according to their individual needs. Some use it to make toys while others use it for mats, bags and rugs, etc,” says Madhur.

Creating a circle of recycling

Later, in 2018, the four friends decided to make their own product from recycled plastic. After a year-long research, in October 2019, they launched their brand Econiture. The brand sells furniture and home decor, which is completely made from 100% recycled plastic.

“Our furniture and home decor can be recycled years later. Our collection includes chairs, stools, racks, stands, shelves, pots, benches, tables, etc,” the industrial engineer graduate adds.

Till date, Econiture has converted over 1400 metric tonnes of dry waste towards recycling.

Speaking about his initiative, Madhur says, “When I was pursuing my MBA, I attended a conference regarding waste management. That’s how I became engaged in this field. Wanting to learn more about waste management, I worked at Nepra Resource Management Pvt Ltd in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, as a project coordinator. Three and a half years later, I came back to my hometown due to family reasons. But my love for waste management increased day by day and I asked my friends to help in launching a new venture — Recycle Bell Private Limited.”

Roshan Pidiyar, MD of Recycle Bell Private Limited, shares, “Initially, my family members had a problem when I chose the path of waste management, but now they are happy and supportive. More than business, Recycle Bell Private Limited is something which helps the environment and society, so that is the main reason why I decided to stay with Madhur’s plan,” says

The 33-year-old adds that recycling one set of plastic waste saves carbon emissions equivalent to two trees in one year.

Econiture sells its furniture through e-commerce platforms like Amazon and on Saryu Homes. The price range of the product started from Rs 300 to Rs 29,000.

Sales director of the company, Ashish Modak says, “Till date the company sold furniture equivalent to 5000 kg of plastic waste. Our company will be launching a new website, from which customers can come and directly order their products by next year.” He also adds that the furniture can be kept outdoors, all-year-round and in all climatic conditions “without any fear of damage to them”.

Talking about their profit margins, Madhur says, “Econiture is generating a profit of Rs 1.5- 2 lakh monthly. From selling recyclable plastic, the company’s total revenue is Rs 7-8 lakh per month.”

“Presently our company has 50 employees and 60% of the employees are women. All segregation in the company is done women,” he says and adds, “If the waste generator doesn’t want money for the plastic they give us, we provide Econiture products according to their requirements.”

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

Bill Gates once wrote, “Energy poverty is real poverty.” And rightly so. From powering lights for work and study to running motors and machines and even the internet — all require electric energy. Without access to affordable and efficient energy sources, the poor get poorer and the socio-economic gap gets wider. Two years ago, Darshan Virupaksha and Prodip Chatterjee set up Nunam in Bengaluru with a mission to eradicate this very energy poverty. Their first solution is rooted in principles of a circular economy — new batteries made from old ones.

“A dead laptop battery still has 80% of its original potential left in it,” Darshan tells The Better India. “It can’t run a laptop, but it can still power lights and charge phones,” he explains.

They collect old batteries from e-waste dealers and distribute their repurposed energy storage systems to street vendors and small shopkeepers.

Giving batteries a second life has a long-standing impact on the country’s energy plans. Today, 90% of batteries do not get recycled and end up in landfills, causing a lot of chemical pollution. But even if recycling becomes a common practice in the near future, it is way better to not recycle that which can be repurposed. With such a reuse system in place, the cost of energy can go down by 50% compared to using new lithium-ion batteries.

How I Met My Co-Founder

Darshan and Prodip met in 2017 at IKP Eden, the hub of Bengaluru’s thriving maker community, which has a penchant for entrepreneurship, innovation, and positive social change.

At the time, Darshan, an electronics engineer, was working at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. He used to visit India frequently in the pursuit of real-world problems to solve. Even with a career in research and academia, he was always involved in projects that touch the lives of people directly.

Prodip, a strategy consultant, who grew up in Germany, was also in India on a sabbatical in the search for more meaningful ventures. He identified that energy is a space that needs immediate attention.

Darshan agreed. They experimented with many ideas and finally hit upon the second-life battery system. When they built the first prototype and realised it was a technically and commercially viable product, they relocated to India and set up Nunam in Bengaluru.

Nunam means “for the future” in Sanskrit. As founders, they share the common vision of a secure future for everyone, not restricted to energy alone or to themselves.

“Eventually we want to help others build similar solutions in India and other developing countries — perhaps through a mobile nano-factory that builds centres around the country which can repurpose batteries locally,” says Darshan.

Challenges

Simple as the concept of repurposed batteries may seem, a lot of research and development goes into it. And it’s expensive!

“We must have written over 150 proposals to CSR groups or companies interested in green tech,” Darshan recalls the struggle of getting funding.

Finally, in May 2019, they landed a research grant from the Germany-based Audi Environment Fund.

Another challenge was zeroing in on the solution. In the beginning, they experimented with smartphone batteries as well, but the duo soon realised that phone batteries vary greatly from brand to brand. On the other hand, lithium-ion laptop batteries are standardised with a fixed form factor, making it easy to design a one-size-fits-all prototype.

The Prototype Batteries & The Pilot

Nunam’s first prototype is a sleek, grey box of 28 interconnected lithium-ion cells salvaged from discarded laptops. It’s a 12 Volt battery with a capacity of up to 18 Ah that can power lights, mobile phones and other low-wattage devices.

Each cell and unit of the second-life energy storage system comes with a serial number and is GPS-enabled. When the batteries expire, Nunam’s team will collect them and send them to recycling centres.

The first batch of the prototype was launched in October this year. The second-life battery units are being distributed for free to vegetable sellers and other street vendors in Bengaluru, in association with SELCO Foundation.

Partnering with TERI, another prototype made from electric-vehicle batteries is powering a network of shops in Amethi, UP.

Siddharth Mishra runs an electrical shop in Amethi selling batteries and inverters, where this prototype is kept. Just this one unit powers 40 shops in the area from 5 pm to 9 pm at Rs 5 per day. He previously used a lead-acid battery at the same monthly charge.

“Compared to lead-acid, this battery is portable and clean,” he tells The Better India. “There are no emissions or residue formation or rust. It has been working great without any complaints. I’m really happy with it,” he adds.

People who can’t afford electricity spend about Rs 10 a day on candles to keep their homes and shops lit — a total of at least Rs 300 a month. “With our prototype, they can get a much more efficient and reliable energy source at a third of the cost,” says Darshan.

A few weeks ago, Nunam’s prototype won first place in the energy giant EDF’s Pulse India competition. The contest aims to support startups developing low-carbon and sustainable energy solutions. It’s a win not only for Darshan and Prodip but for all of us hoping for an energy-abundant future.

This article has been sponsored by DBS Bank India

For decades now, India has been grappling with the issue of hunger and inadequate nutrition. Hence, it was no surprise when the Global Hunger Index, 2019, ranked India at 102 out of a list of 117 countries fighting hunger.

Economists and policymakers consider hunger an outcome of overpopulation and poverty. And while these are contributing factors, another culprit lurks in the form of dilapidated infrastructure, inadequate storage and overflowing dumpsters – the creation and improper treatment of food waste.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, almost 40% of the total food grown in India annually goes to waste. In other words, we waste close to half of what we produce. Wastage does not begin with tossing leftovers or scraps into the dustbin after a hearty meal. It is a complex, multifaceted concern that involves looking beyond households and restaurants, and into wastage at the very source of the supply chain.

From crop failure, to post-harvesting processes, storage, distribution, etc., gaps need to be addressed to solve the problem of food wastage. The good news is that there are several purpose-driven companies working on future-forward solutions to this issue.

One such effort is led by DBS Bank India, which works with several companies and social enterprises to fight food wastage at the source. With the goal of doing more and better with less, here are a few organisations whose innovations are enabling a world with zero food-waste .

Kheyti Tech

Through its ‘Greenhouse-in-a-Box’ (GIB) social innovation, a low-cost modular greenhouse, Kheyti helps farmers increase their yield and the predictability of the total production by a considerable margin.

GIB is designed to fit in small areas, which enables its use by even smallholder farmers. This greenhouse creates a favorable microclimate which reduces food spoilage due to extreme weather and other environmental risks. Further, it reduces pest attacks, which minimises crop damage and food wastage. All these features eventually help farmers grow seven times more food using 90% less water, as compared to cultivating in open fields.

As an example, Kheyti Tech shares how farmers have benefitted, especially in cucumber cultivation. Average yields increased to 3-8 tons in the greenhouse, as compared to an open field average of 430 kg on a 463 sq metre plot of land. This greenhouse helps farmers earn upto ₹1,00,000 additional profit/year using just 1/10th acre of land and 2 hours of time/day. Today, 300 farmers in Telangana use Kheyti’s greenhouse. They plan to reach 3,000 farmers by the end of 2022.

“DBS Foundation’s Social Enterprise Grant was instrumental in piloting our business model. DBS Bank India is actively engaged towards ensuring that its social enterprise partners succeed. They conduct capacity building sessions, webinars, and connect the ecosystem of social enterprises. This has helped Kheyti in actualising our mission of serving small farmers,” the Kheyti team shares.

Krishi Naturals

An agri-social enterprise, Krishi Naturals, focuses on providing services to promote organic farming. The enterprise also takes an indirect route to influence the ‘zero food waste’ mission.

One of their recent triumphs has been around dairy farming with their brand Girej. Their techniques helped increase the milk yield of indigenous cows by 16-20%. With milk and ghee alone, they are impacting over 300 farmers, helping them increase their income by 18 to 20%.

They credit their impact potential to continuous support from the DBS Bank.

“DBS has always been a continuous source of support in terms of both capital as well as non-capital assistance. In 2018, Mr Shurojit Shome, CEO, DBS Bank India had mentored us, so that we learnt how to diagnose problems and adapt to sudden changes in the market, especially post Covid-19. Apart from that, we also got a seed fund and fellowship support from DBS Bank India under the DBS-TISS Social Entrepreneurship Program,” says Krishi Naturals.

Swani Spices Pvt Ltd.

With the group company established in 1864, Swani Spices’ mission is to create a customer-centric, environmentally friendly, and sustainable enterprise that delivers value throughout the supply chain.. Keeping with this vision, their backward integration program, with the involvement of farmers, and other such processes are all Rainforest Alliance certified for Sustainable Agriculture & independently Organic Certified. The company started an initiative with the ‘Land to Lab’ concept to bridge the gap between rural agriculture, technology, and agricultural science back in 2006.

A client of DBS Bank India, Swani Spices has taken various steps to contribute to the cycle of food production sustainably, ensuring minimal to no wastage along the way. These steps include initiating sustainable farming across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal, Uttrakhand, Punjab, Rajasthan etc ; other than compositing and water conservation to improving livelihoods of more than 3000 farmers.

One of their initiatives to enhance yields was the soil testing and re-enrichment programme called “Samriddhi”, which translate to “Prosper” in Sanscrit. Using their soil analysis reports, Swani helped farmers rebalance nutrients in the soil with the help of customised ingredients. Such programmes also ensure nitrogen from the natural elements are absorbed in the soil and not released into the atmosphere, thus contributing positively to a sustainable environment.

Ecozen

A technology company, Ecozen focuses on enabling the Farm-To-Fork value chain for perishable food items with three core offerings – Ecotron, Ecofrost and Eco-Connect, which work across the production, management, and marketing of perishable Agri commodities respectively.

Started in 2010 by three IIT Kharagpur alumni, they work towards eliminating all the pain points across the Farm to Fork value change, at various stages.

“In the pre-harvest stage, only 48% of the net sown area is irrigated in India leading to reduced output. And in post-harvest, 40% of the food is wasted between the field and the end customer due to infrastructural gaps in the cold chain, leading to wastage of Rs 1.7 trillion worth of fruits and vegetables (annually). While the current solutions are mostly based on traditional energy sources, they are also operationally inefficient and negatively impact farmer income. So, we are solving these problems through renewable energy that is not only making the supply chain more efficient but also creating environmental and social impact,” explains the founders of Ecozen.

By creating 16,800 metric tonnes of solar cold storage capacity, so far, they have generated 404 million kWh of clean energy which is equivalent to lighting up 100 million houses for a day, while also abating 590,000 tons of CO2 emissions. In the process, they have reduced 12,740 metric tonnes of food wastage (the equivalent of serving 1,300 people for a lifetime) and have benefitted almost 35,000 farmers along the way.

DBS Bank’s support through grant will help the company in impacting more farmers and reduce food wastage while keeping the environment clean. The grant will be used by Ecozen to expand their Ecofrost solution geographically and eliminate value chain bottlenecks in highly perishable goods. “The grant is a validation of our efforts and product offering. Food Loss is a key issue in all developing countries and we at Ecozen are striving to build solutions to prevent this. The DBS funding will help us to reach out and collaborate with like-minded businesses and organizations working towards tackling food loss,” adds the team.

S4S Technologies

A food-tech company, S4S Technologies provides an array of services, like a quality check of the produce, secondary processing at its ISO grade factory and dehydration of perishable fruits and vegetables using solar dryers — all meant to eliminate food wastage in the supply chain. This saves around 20% of the food usually wasted in the post-production process.

The DBS Foundation gave S4S a grant in 2019 to expand its food-preservation offerings to several parts of the country, reducing wastage and enabling farmers to earn better livelihoods.

S4S’s technologies have been helping farmers reduce costs by processing the food right at the farm. Their solar-powered food-dehydrators have successfully increased the shelf-life of produce from a few days up to a year — without the use of any chemicals or preservatives.

With the help of these dryers, farmers no longer need to fear unsold produce. Instead, they can dehydrate the fruit or vegetable and wait till demand increases and ensures a fair price.

The silver lining to the food waste problem is that there are many similar enterprises working on the ground to tackle the range of issues, using technology to enhance food security. With the right support from stakeholders and purposeful organizations, they could help India fight a problem that has seemed insurmountable for so long and accelerate our movement towards zero food waste.

This article has been sponsored by DBS Bank India

Ignorance is not really blissful when it culminates in a toxic affair. This fact holds particularly true in the case of waste management in India.

Most urban cities in India, with its burgeoning population, face a massive waste management challenge. With more than 377 million people living in urban cities and towns, generating close to 60 million tonnes of municipal solid waste per annum, the situation continues to be bleak. This is because most of the waste, almost 31 million tonnes of it, goes into the open landfills, leaving the rest to be recklessly dumped on streets.

Ritvik Rao, an expert in the field, points out that it is we who are to blame for that. “Why is the waste generated in our houses someone else’s business? Being ignorant about our responsibility and contribution to the cycle of waste generation is one of the biggest problems with waste management in India. Source segregation is one of the most crucial ways to combat it, but first, we need to learn to be accountable for our waste,” says the 32-year-old. Ritvik’s passion for the cause pushed him to start a social enterprise called Sampurn(e)arth, which focuses on urban waste management.

Care, before complaining

The idea of Sampurn(e)arth first surfaced as part of an entrepreneurship course designed to encourage sustainable social businesses at Tata Institute of Social Sciences. This was when three postgraduate students of social entrepreneurship decided to combat the ignorance towards waste management with a systematic approach of holding the waste generator equally accountable as all the other stakeholders.

Ritvik, along with Debartha Banerjee and Jayanth Nataraju, started the Mumbai-based social venture in 2012. Their aim was to provide waste solutions that not only focus on disposal and recycling but also on counselling and helping people achieve green goals, including zero waste generation.

Equipped with a triple bottom line approach, their projects focus on being eco-friendly, engaging with the informal and unorganised sector of sanitation workers and waste-pickers, and creating green solutions that are economically self-sustaining. Be it end-to-end decentralised waste management solutions like setting up waste handling systems or providing operation and maintenance assistance, Sampurn(e)arth has come a long way in transforming the sector sustainably.

“The usual outlook of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ often plagues this sector. By holding citizens accountable, providing them with sustainable tools of improvement and incentivizing them through the creation of value from waste, we are trying to make a long-lasting impact,” adds Ritvik.

Waste-pickers to Waste managers

Prior to starting Sampur(e)arth, the trio began to volunteer for NGOs working in this sector to get a nuanced understanding of waste management in India. One of the organisations that they worked with was an NGO focused on the role of waste-pickers and their rights. It was this exposure that opened their eyes to the deeper cracks that lay within the system of waste management in India, one that involved rampant exploitation of the waste-pickers and sanitation workers.

They realised that waste solutions exclusive to the problems faced by waste-pickers would be incomplete. And this pushed them to create a more inclusive approach.

“People need to be aware and sensitive to the other stakeholders in the chain, which includes waste-pickers. Often exposed to exploitation by their scrap dealers and harmful and unsanitary working conditions, organising this largely unorganised sector was one of the many challenges we had to overcome in the process, and today we can proudly say that Sampurn(e)arth has been responsible for indirect employment of over 500 people in the sector, over the last eight years,” adds Ritvik. His venture has trained several waste-pickers to manage both bio-degradable and non-biodegradable waste management systems sustainably, transforming them into successful waste-managers.

Focused on optimising and creating the right technology for sustainable waste management with a seamless implementation, Sampur(e)arth has worked with housing societies, corporates, educational institutions as well as municipal corporations.

Owing to its all-encompassing approach towards waste management and sustainability, Sampurn(e)arth is one of the many organisations supported by DBS Bank India to accomplish the larger mission to fight food wastage in India. Through such collaborations, DBS Bank India aims at making a hunger-free world possible by 2030.

“From providing seed funds to strategising and mentoring, DBS Bank India has been supporting us since 2011, and in turn we have been an active part in their fight against food wastage. Through our efforts, we have ensured that more than 50 housing societies in Mumbai employ sustainable measures for food waste collection, source segregation and have processed almost 60,000 tonnes of food waste so far. We have come a long way, but there’s a lot more to be done and accomplished,” shares Ritvik.

In a country that produces around 67 million tonnes of food waste every year, efforts like that of DBS Bank India to attain a zero-waste tomorrow is noteworthy. DBS Bank India has collaborated with The Better India and launched a unique campaign called #NotInstaWorthy challenge. It aims at acknowledging the dark side of food production and wastage and recognising its influence on the current state of hunger and malnutrition in India. By doing so, DBS Bank India is not only setting a positive precedent but also helping people truly achieve a zero food waste lifestyle. Find out more about the challenge here.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

In the spirit of Christmas, many homes are lit up with festive cheer — bright and colourful lights, lushly decorated trees, and a bright star that symbolises hope adorn the front doors of many houses. Some reuse decorations from the previous year and others have purchased new ones. Bengaluru’s Godrej Woodsman Estate in Hebbal has done something slightly different, with a giant Christmas-themed installation made completely from upcycled scrap material.

The installation consists of a Christmas tree made of bamboo sticks and PVC pipes, a snowman made from old tyres, Santa Claus made using an old water tank, a sleigh made using a large cable spool, and a reindeer made of fallen tree barks.

The design was ideated and executed by Anumeha Mittal, a resident of the colony. “The idea was part of an initiative that the complex had undertaken earlier this year for Diwali,” says Anumeha, who holds a Masters in Design degree from the National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi. She adds, “When the apartment’s cultural committee head — Sirisha Tadepalli approached me and asked if I could make an eco-friendly installation that looked like the ones put up in malls, I immediately said yes.” She has worked as a visual merchandising designer with well-known brands across the country.

A bid to do something different

Anumeha says that earlier when she had to create installations for brands she worked with, she would jot down the material she could use and the budget in hand, and then think about structures she could make using what she had.

“If I had to make a Christmas tree, I would simply buy one from a store. However, I didn’t want to do that this time, and instead decided to use things that were lying around or were discarded in our apartment complex,” she says, adding that the idea to upcycle things came to her during her child’s birthday party, when she used old cassette tapes lying around her house to make return gifts.

A few weeks before Diwali, Anumeha approached Vittal Sujeer, the head of maintenance and administration in her society and gathered all the scrap material she could find. This included bamboo sticks, tree branches cut off during pruning, pipes used for plumbing, an old red carpet from the storeroom, cement mixing bowls, wooden cable spools, and a metal chain from an abandoned scooter in the apartment.

“With help from 10 maintenance workers, including carpenters and plumbers, we spent seven days converting a cable spool into a Ferris wheel, and PVC pipes into rockets and ladis. Besides making still installations, we made the Ferris wheel, which could spin around and keep the children entertained. The wheel also had spokes made from bamboo sticks, on which we put diyas. Each diya was made from a painted cement-mixing bowl, with flames made from yellow coloured cloth,” says Anumeha.

Upcycled Santa Claus

For Christmas, Anumeha designed a snow globe-like structure using bamboo sticks and a plastic sheet. The sheet was wrapped around the sticks, and inside was a snowman made from tyres painted in white. She repurposed the red carpet from the Diwali decorations to make his scarf.

“The Christmas tree inside the snowglobe was made by arranging sticks in a conical pattern, with an old cycle’s tyre as the base. It was decorated with colourful wire. The globe also holds thermocol-snow and the entire structure is held in shape with a strong PVC pipe in the centre,” she says.

The red-coloured sleigh was made from the society’s garbage pushcart, and the reindeer pulling the sleigh were made by arranging painted sticks. Their horns were made from fallen tree barks. On the sleigh sits Santa Claus, whose body was made from a water tank painted in red, beard from rope and glasses from GI wire.

To give the installation a more festive look, Anumeha decorated the premises with bells made from fire extinguisher buckets and fairy lights.

Anumeha says, “The entire installation was made within a budget of Rs 15,000 and most of the items purchased will be upcycled for the next installation, which is for New Year’s Eve. The theme is along the lines of a disco party and we are making most of the decorations from CDs lying around residents’ homes.”

Plans for the future

Early 2020, Anumeha launched a company that is pending registration, named Boomerang. She says she would work as a space stylist and decorate venues by upcycling material. However, when the COVID-19 lockdown was announced, she stopped working on it.

“I named the company Boomerang because like a real boomerang, waste that is thrown out will be brought back as decoration,” she says.

Now, with two successful installations, she is ready to start her work again and offer help to others if they need to decorate. To know more, you can contact her through her official Instagram page.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

Preeti Patil from Mumbai is lobbying for “skyscraper architects to redesign buildings, especially rooftops, to increase green spaces”. Her plea stems from nearly 20 years of commitment to her passion. Almost two decades ago, Preeti, the chief catering manager at MbPT (Mumbai Port Trust), unknowingly started a lifestyle trend for the Mumbaikars — terrace and balcony gardening.

Back then, balcony gardeners restricted themselves to growing potted plants like roses, jasmine, mint, coriander or the cactus. But one might say the concept of utilising the rooftops of their buildings to grow vegetables and fruits was popularised by some of the early pioneers like Preeti.

Reminiscing about the beginning in 2001, Preeti says, “At the MbPT cafeteria, every day we prepare meals and snacks for thousands of port trust personnel. So imagine the amount of vegetable and fruit waste and uneaten food waste that ends up in landfills.’’ The huge mounds of kitchen waste triggered Preeti’s interest in finding ways to utilise it.

Luckily for her, the beginning of this century was also around the time when the internet boom came in. There was increased tourist travel, which included both international and domestic travel, that got people discussing happenings elsewhere. A growing awareness of organic farming using farm waste, like fallen leaves, twigs, cow dung, food waste, was also on the rise.

It was here that Preeti found a retired economist Dr R T Doshi, who had marketed NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) and other manure and had switched over to organic farming on his small land in Kamshet located between Mumbai and Pune. From his experience on his own farm, he had started conducting small workshops for Mumbaikars and Punekars to teach them the benefits of balcony gardening using their daily kitchen waste.

Preeti attended one of his workshops and realised that she luckily had an unutilised space of 3000 sq. ft — the roof of the MbPt canteen.
The dockyards at MbPT is a highly restricted area on the shores of Mumbai’s coastal area of the Arabian Sea. The port is used to transport bulk cargo and throughout the day many ships are dock and leave the port. There are hundreds of cranes, cargo lifting machines, heavyweight trailer trucks transporting the cargo and accompanying constant din. In such a hot, noisy and dusty locality, Preeti Patil dreamt of making a green oasis. Within five years, with help from her team in the cafeteria and after getting due permissions from the MbPT officials, she finally fulfilled her dream.

“We started with only four saplings — two each of guava and chikoo,’’ recalls Preeti.

To build a green oasis on the roof

Within no time, the terrace top boasted of 116 other plant kingdom varieties ranging from coconut, pineapple, custard apple, papaya, banana, mango, gooseberry, okra, tomato, broccoli, tamarind, etc. and leafy vegetables like spinach, amaranthus, mint, coriander, basil, ginger, among others. All this was grown using the converted cafeteria’s kitchen waste into very rich manure. She admits that though the produce on the rooftop didn’t meet the demand for cooking daily for more than 4,000 dock workers but what it did was make good use of the vast kitchen waste.

After learning from Dr Doshi, she started researching on the works of late Deepak Suchde, founder of Natueco farming, who taught the usage of Amrut Mitti is the best natural fertiliser using biomass like dry leaves, kitchen waste mixed water with cow dung and cow urine, natural jaggery, etc.

Preeti’s MbPT garden bloomed with help from Deepak—who had learnt these techniques from Prof Shripad Dhabolkar—and her own experimentation in the garden. Citing an example she narrates how when she didn’t have natural land to grow, she used plastic laundry drums, half-sawn large drums and brick rings to fill them up with soil and the Amrut Mitti before planting the saplings.

She brushes aside people’s fear of roots breaking through the rooftops of buildings saying, “Roots don’t break into the floor unless they need to anchor. If they get good external support, like a wall or a strong pole, the feeder roots nourishing the plants need just 9 inches of soil. Also, plants growing on the terraces need to be pruned so it won’t become difficult to pluck fruits.”

To control the wind and torrential rainfall of Mumbai, Preeti also set up small miniature greenhouses of plastic sheet tents. On tall buildings, she urges builders to design thicker rooftops and install windbreakers. “Luckily for us in India, there is abundant sunlight and rooftops can get clean rainwater,” she says.

Community farming in the city

Preeti feels that terrace gardening will unite people in the housing society as it needs involvement by all households. When residents realise that by growing their own veggies on their premises and are assured of chemical-free food, they will enjoy the process. Along with a few friends, Preeti started the Urban Leaves initiative, where she popularised community farming in housing societies and their rooftops. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and lockdown, their efforts have been paused.

But the lockdown hasn’t stopped people in different places calling up Preeti for her expertise on Amrut Mitti or how to start terrace gardens. Preeti explains that preparation of Amrut Mitti takes time while “people are used to buying ready-made mixes, either sold or given free in malls as compost, which isn’t of good quality and hence may not get the results they expect from their terrace or balcony gardening”.

The global food waste estimated by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the UN on average amounts to almost 100 kgs per person per year. As per their estimates, the food waste causes a global economic and environmental loss of about $2.6 trillion a year which causes nearly 8 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Now imagine the impact of the untapped useful resource at hand if every individual starts following what Preeti and others after her are so vociferously practising.

Edited by Yoshita Rao

Editor’s Note: The article originally listed the firm as recycling ‘7200 Million Tonnes’ of e-waste. This was a typo. The company recycles ‘7200 Metric Tonnes’ of e-waste. The article has been updated to reflect the same. We apologise for the error. 

With annual revenues of Rs 15 crore, Eco Recycling Ltd (Ecoreco), a Mumbai-based company that is the “first company to formally recycle e-waste in India” operates ISO-certified facilities and is currently listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Interestingly, they don’t pay individual users for their dead mobile phones or keyboards. So, how does the company make money? Ecoreco works with MNCs or OEMs looking to recycle large volumes of e-waste.

“Hypothetically speaking, say an MNC wants to get rid of 2,000 laptops. Among the discarded 2,000 laptops we buy from a company at nominal value, there are at least 400 we can refurbish, market for reuse, and these items get sold out quickly. The remaining 1,600 pieces are completely shredded and segregated at our facility using the latest technology and protective gear for our workers. There are three kinds of materials we segregate in a laptop comprising different varieties of metals, plastic and glass, whose consolidated value is larger than the investment made by Ecoreco. This is how we make our margin,” says Soni.

Pioneers of the E-Waste Game

Before establishing Ecoreco, the 62-year-old Soni was a successful stockbroker and financial consultant in Mumbai. It was a friend who first introduced Soni to e-waste management, and he was blown away by the future scope of this business. Establishing the company in 2005, he spent the first year extensively researching the sector by visiting e-waste recycling plants in Western Europe and the United States and talking to experts.

“In the beginning, our motivations were purely commercial because the consumption of electronic products was on the rise in India. Only when we started working in this segment, did we realise that our work could have a positive impact on the environment and our health. In 2005, we began with the manual dismantling of electronic devices. This is an integral part of e-waste recycling, and workers have to don protective gear. In the following year, we installed our first shredder imported from Ireland in our small facility. In the early days, it was manual dismantling, mechanical shredding and different varieties of separators that remove different kinds of metals and hazardous products,” he recalls.

Soni also goes on to claim that Ecoreco was responsible for setting key milestones in the e-waste management sector long before the electronics industry and governments were ready for them. For example, they claim to have established the first producers’ responsibility organisation or PRO, which is defined here as “a professional organisation authorised or financed collectively or individually by producers, which can take the responsibility for collection and channelisation of e-waste generated from the ‘end-of-life’ of their products to ensure environmentally sound management of such e-waste”.

“We set up ‘WeeePRO’, providing innovative and flexible options to assist producers with meeting their Extended Producer Responsibilities (EPR). WeeePRO was introduced in 2011, even while the government was formulating regulation on the same. The first set of e-waste management rules in India came into existence on 1 May 2012. We later changed the name of our PRO to PROEPR (www.proepr.com),” he notes.

Starting out as a bootstrapped entity, today, the company comprises three main investors. Soni has a 71 per cent stake, the Times of India Group holds 9 per cent and another 4 per cent belongs to the company supplying them with the latest technology. The rest of 16 per cent is owned by 4,000 shareholders on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). From its humble beginnings in 2005, today Ecoreco recycles 7,200 metric tonnes per annum.

Free App For Your E-Waste

The team at Ecoreco spent the first year extensively testing their Book My Junk app, which was launched in early 2019.

“We collected e-waste from more than 800 homes and other locations during our test run. Unfortunately, once we established the app was working well, COVID-19 struck the world. In the lockdown period, we didn’t want to risk users or employees. Although the app was at a standstill for months, we are now back collecting e-waste again. Since the past month or so, we have been operational and Ecoreco has installed around 100 eco-bins for safe dumping of e-waste in various locations in Mumbai, Thane and other nearby places,” says BK Soni, chairman and managing director (CMD).

Soni is very clear on the point that the main objective of this app is not to collect large quantities of e-waste from individual users who want to make money. The app is only meant for those people looking to dispose of their e-waste in an environmentally friendly manner.

“What a user can do is log into the app and submit basic details like their location address. We will send them a box by courier in which they can pack small electronic items like a mobile phone, laptop charger, laptops, cables, batteries or mouse that may not fetch them much value in the market. Once the packed box is kept ready, the user can notify us on the app. Our courier person then reaches the location and picks up the e-waste from their door. It’s completely effortless and a free of charge service which allows users to dispose of their e-waste in a manner that doesn’t harm the environment,” explains Soni.

The e-waste material gets completely dismantled at their facility in Mumbai, following which the recycling process commences. “Whatever profits we are making from our businesses, we want to spend a part of that on this social service, branding and awareness of responsible e-waste disposal, which we do through our app,” he adds.

Once the e-waste leaves a user’s home which consists of pieces that are absolutely non-reusable. These items are then shredded in their facility and the segregation of plastic, glass, metals and hazardous substances takes place.

The app, in turn, has received good reviews.

Siddhanth Valecha, a Mumbai based entrepreneur, calls Book My Junk a “fantastic application which works seamlessly”. The entrepreneur goes on to add how he would “100 per cent recommend this app for all people wanting to dispose of anything electronic from pencil cells and mobile phones to CDs and junk TVs.”

Another user, meanwhile, talks about how she had an old TV which the local kabadiwala wasn’t willing to take. “After placing the request for a pickup, they collected the junk within two to three days, providing doorstep service for free,” she says.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

This article has been published in partnership with BBC Media Action.

Do you have friends?

We know the question sounds weird. But take a moment and think about that person who is consistently there for you even in the earliest hours of the morning? Someone who takes the load off you and protects and cares for you and your family?

Now, imagine having one such friend who does all of the above, without you even knowing about them.

Is it even possible?

A unique social experiment was performed to prove just that.

Created and developed by BBC Media Action, this social experiment film introduces the residents of Bengaluru to their invisible best friends — the incredible, hard-working, and invaluable waste-pickers of the city.

These are friends who visit us every morning to take away our load of waste and ensure health and safety for us and our family members. These are the people who work in the scorching heat, through the challenges of a raging pandemic, and put their lives on the line every single day — no matter the situation. And somewhere, we are all aware, that despite the invisibility forced upon them by our society, their work is truly invaluable for the smooth functioning of our daily lives.

But what do we do for them in return? Certainly not enough, as one can see in the case of Dhanalakshmi, a Bengaluru-based informal waste-picker.

“Most people are indifferent to us and others, outright rude. We try not to interact with people at work as well because more often than not they are under the influence of alcohol. If and when we talk it ends up in a fight so we avoid it as much as possible,” says the 35-year-old, describing a typical workday in the life of a waste-picker.

Dhanalakshmi works as an informal waste-picker who has spent most of her life collecting, transporting, segregating and recycling the city’s discards. And yet her identity and contribution to society, like numerous before her, continues to be shrouded in ignorance and injustice.

Even in a metropolitan city like Bengaluru – which has a high level of citizen awareness and participation, the invisibility of informal waste-pickers is dire. As collectors, sorters, recyclers, they are a key component in the solid waste management system of the city. For decades, these invisible waste-warriors have been doing an invaluable job that is worthy of being recognised as an essential service. And yet their contribution to Bengaluru’s waste management system remains under-appreciated.

This discrimination and exploitation of the community are fuelled by the lack of recognition for the unorganised section of waste management, which goes much more beyond segregation.

With an objective to change how residents of Bengaluru perceive their invaluable friends, the waste pickers, BBC Media Action, BBC’s international development organisation, has launched a social and behaviour change communication initiative (SBCC) to improve the social acceptance of informal waste pickers among Bengalureans. BBC Media Action’s intervention is part of a larger initiative by Saamuhika Shakti, a collective of NGOs, that aims to improve the quality of the lives of informal waste-pickers. The vision of this initiative is ‘to enable the waste-pickers’ community to have greater agency to lead secure and dignified lives.

As suggested in the film, in a general sense, most people in Bengaluru are appreciative of formal waste collectors, but BBC Media Action’s formative study exposes how there exists a deep-seated stigma against informal waste pickers. It includes fear of contracting diseases from waste pickers, lack of education, homelessness to even their physical appearance.

According to the 2020 study, almost 55% of their respondents stated that informal waste pickers are dirty in appearance while 56% believed that they shouldn’t be allowed in building complexes and societies.

This prejudice and perception only encourage the community to further cocoon itself into the darkness as a way to escape from all the discrimination, bullying and violence.

People like Dhanalakshmi ensure that a city like Bengaluru does not turn into a garbage city. Yet they remain to be one of the most underappreciated parts of the population. They are the reason why we can safely forget about our waste, once we have packed and discarded them into the green and blue bins.

But, does our responsibility end there?

Not really.

And, BBC Media Action’s initiative, through the #Invaluables campaign is working to establish a positive connection between the citizens and informal waste-pickers, as a solution.

The first step, from our side, is to show appreciation, empathy and support. You can do so by joining the #Invaluables community online which contains details about the informal waste-pickers.

To find out more, click here.

Cover image: Representational

While terrace gardening keeps us busy and allows us to grow organic produce, many worry that this is an expensive hobby. This is because purchasing new plants, organic potting mixes, fancy planters and more can burn a hole in one’s pocket.

However, Mohammed Mohin, a Telangana-based entrepreneur, has a simple solution to reduce the money spent on buying planters. He recycles things in his home that are otherwise set aside to be discarded, including broken kitchen utensils, empty metal oil cans, water drums, old shoes, and even denim jeans.

“I started my gardening journey in 2017 by growing a few vegetables on my terrace. I planted most of them in terracotta pots initially, but slowly stopped purchasing them as I realised that anything and everything around my home can be converted into a planter. Today, in my 1,500 sq ft terrace and the space surrounding my house, I have over 400 plants, including 12 varieties of fruits, 10 varieties of vegetables and others, growing in recycled containers,” says Mohammed in an interview with The Better India.

He often paints these containers or creates external covers using recycled denim to add aesthetic value and brighten up his space.

Aesthetic setup

Some plants Mohammed grows include tomatoes, moringa, palak, chillies, petunia flowers, chikko, pomegranate and dragon fruit. While the ones with a widespread root system like chikoo tree or moringa are grown in 500-litre water drums or 20-litre cans, the others with shorter roots are grown in tires, oil cans and more.

“Initially, recycling these materials made me feel enthusiastic about being eco-conscious. However, my garden looked boring. So I started to paint each container to add some colour,” says Mohammed.

During the lockdown, he came across a video on YouTube of a gardener converting their old jeans and cotton pants into planters to make them look attractive. Today he has recycled three old jeans into planters.

“Recycling jeans reduces the waste generated, and when used as a planter, it will hold any potting mix that may spill. If you are placing indoor plants inside, then it holds water that seeps from the bottom and prevents the floor from becoming damp,” says Mohammed.

Deepika Aggarwal (35), a resident of Dehradun also makes planters by recycling old jeans.

She says, “I started gardening as a hobby last year during the lockdown. To keep my indoor plants, I followed some YouTube videos and made planters from old jeans and cotton pyjama pants. This not only keeps my surface clean but also makes it look like my plant is an actual person.”

These gardeners share how they made these planters from old jeans so you can try them out too.

Things you will need:

• Old jeans or cotton pyjama pants
• Old cloth, newspaper, or cotton
• Rubber bands

Step 1: Tie the bottom parts of both legs with rubber bands and ensure there is no gap.

Step 2: From the top, start filling in old cloth or cotton to make both the legs look full.

Note: Fill it up to 3 inches over the knees. You can also use any flexible material as stuffing.

Step 3: Position this like a person sitting on a stool, wall or shelf.

Step 4: Place a plant in any circular recycled container or a pot filled with organic potting mix.

Step 5: Finally, place this container at the hip of the pants, and lift the sides of the jeans and fold it into the container’s rim.

Image courtesy: Deepika Aggarwal and Mohammed Moiez.

A bottle of chilled cold drink during a sultry summer day seems like a harmless idea when considered in isolation. But what if we told you that one million such bottles are purchased every minute across the world?

Why this becomes important is because every single one of them is made of plastic.

Most plastic is manufactured by turning petroleum into a material unrecognised by microorganisms, making it tough for them to break it down. This is the reason why it takes years for the material to decompose naturally. Your travel-friendly PET bottles, for instance, take 450 years to decompose, polluting the environment for their entire life span.

While this information may seem overwhelming, our driven youth is taking matters into their own hands and combating the issue — one bottle at a time.

Ten students of Universal Business School (UBS), Mumbai began Project ROOP in August 2020 to upcycle plastic bottles under the wing of ENACTUS-UBS. ‘Recycle Our Own Plastic’ or ROOP works on a cost-effective model that reuses PET bottles to create hydroponic pot planters. As opposed to recycling waste, upcycling allows the team to use the bottles as they are, without involving the cost of breaking them down to build something entirely new.

“We use four to five plastic bottles and cut them into half. The upper part of the bottle is reversed and inserted into the bottle. The upper part is stuffed with a jute cloth. This is where the plant is placed. Two holes are drilled on the lower part on opposite sides of each bottle and a pipe is passed through them. This connects all the bottles together to ensure all of them receive a water flow,” ENACTUS President, Sudharma Kambhamettu, explains.

This unique prototype not only reuses plastic but also eliminates the use of soil in farming. The head of this project is Het Gor, who says, “Upon testing the planters internally, we even found it convenient to use less water in the process. I could water the plants at an interval of two to three days and still receive a great yield.”

‘Redesign to Reuse’

ENACTUS is a non-profit social enterprise and experiential learning platform. Its aim is to help student members build business models in line with universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using this platform as an opportunity, these students decided to build a product that is not only environmentally friendly but also helps society.

“Funding can be a cause for concern in such a case, but the creativity of the students is enough to combat the problem,” says Sudharma. To get Project ROOP running, these student entrepreneurs hosted a fundraising event called ‘Redesign to Reuse’, which saw the participation of over 50 members. The team even went on to host two cleanliness drives in Mumbai and Chennai to collect plastic waste bottles needed for the project.

Through these drives alone, they were able to collect 30 kgs of plastic waste.

The onset of the pandemic proved to be a bump in the road but they continued to power through the cause even remotely. There was no time for excuses and the project was immediately shifted to a podcast channel called ‘Make it Green’ to keep generating awareness while on-ground action was in abeyance.

Throughout this time these enthusiastic environmentalists worked consistently towards refining and finalising their prototype to ensure that it was cost effective, environment-friendly and unique.

Upon hearing about the initiative, environmentalist Ruchi Jain of Mumbai shares, “I would definitely vouch for hydroponic pots. They are pocket-friendly and a great innovation for more and more people to use them. We need more of such creations to boost not only awareness but also a green culture of living, and of course, anything that creates more fresh air in the process is great!”

Being Instruments of Change

Waste management is not where the goals of these high-spirited individuals end. Their nifty innovation tackles the problem of one-time use plastic disposal, offers a cost-effective solution to farming, and generates employment opportunities through targeted dispersal.

The students are currently working in collaboration with Light of Life Trust, which has its network base among the rural population of Maharashtra. “Through their support, we aspire to teach the skill of making upcycled hydroponic planters to underprivileged communities and help generate employment opportunities through it,” says the student president. The prototype is now ready for implementation, and together the two organisations are targeting the training of 10 rural women to begin with.

Unfettered action and a passion for taking charge wherever possible has reaped benefits for these young changemakers. Their project has not only found the whole-hearted support of their college faculty, but has also received enthusiastic response from their own peers, who have become advocates for these planters in different cities.

Despite the dynamic scale of plastic consumption, these students have begun a cycle of change and put to practice the simple principle of — “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Edited by Yoshita Rao

In 2019, reports estimated that over 3.3 million metric tonnes of plastic wound up in landfills across India. However, to reduce the burden on the environment, Aditya Banger (17) a resident of Bhilwara, Rajasthan has started recycling plastic bottles, wrappers and covers to make fabric.

“The process takes one or two days but the fabric produced is stronger than regular cotton and is more durable,” says Aditya, a Class 12 student of Mayo College, Rajasthan, in an interview with The Better India.

His company, Trash to Treasure, was launched in January 2021 and every day they recycle up to 10 tonnes of plastic to make fabric.

Innovative textile

Two years ago, Aditya—who comes from a textile manufacturing family—went on a business trip to China. He was travelling with his uncle, the owner of Kanchan India Limited, to see new manufacturing techniques for producing fabric.

“That is when I came across a unit that was converting large quantities of plastic waste into fabric. It not only reduces waste going into the landfills but also produces good quality material and creates employment locally,” says Aditya.

Once they returned Aditya, who was in Class 10 at the time, pitched an idea to his family about starting a business of producing fabric from plastic. His uncle and parents agreed and supported his venture. By collaborating with a foreign company, Aditya had a manufacturing unit set up in Bhilwara.

“The project was funded by the parent company, Kanchan India Limited, for whom the fabric will be made,” says Aditya.

Recycling 10 Tonnes of Plastic

By January 2021 when the lockdowns were eased, Aditya began sourcing plastic waste from all over the country. He connected with local waste collection centres and purchased PET grade plastic for Rs 40/ kilogram.

Once the waste reaches the unit, it is thoroughly cleaned, the labels are removed and allowed to dry. They are then chopped into fine flakes and melted to remove toxic chemicals. The melted plastic, also known as the plastic filament when cooled down becomes the fibre.

“The fibre is spun into yarn and mixed along with cotton to make fabric. Currently, the fabric is made by the parent company, and then sold to other companies who will make clothes using the same,” says Aditya.

To date, Aditya claims to have recycled 10 tonnes of plastic every day. However, purchasing the same is proving to be expensive for his business. Now, he requests plastic waste directly from residents who are collecting them for recycling.

“The plastic needs to be PET grade and does not need to be washed or cleaned. It can be sent to our unit as is and we will clean it before using it for yarn,” says Aditya.

If you wish to deposit PET grade plastic waste to help Trash to Treasure, be sure to connect with Aditya and send the waste to A 110 Shastri Nagar, Bhilwars, 311001, Rajasthan or check out their Instagram page.

Edited by Yoshita Rao

According to estimates by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India’s national per capita plastic waste generation stands at 7.6 gm per day. The official CPCB study goes on to state that India produces an astounding 3.3 trillion grams of plastic per year.

As per a 2015 study by the CPCB, nearly 66% of plastic waste consisted of “mixed waste—poly bags, multilayer pouches used for packing food items, etc. (belonging to HPPE/ LDPE or PP materials), sourced mainly from households and residential localities.”

The study noted that this sort of plastic waste could not be recycled. Further, a global material balance study on plastics found that “79% of the total plastics produced in the world enters our environment as waste. Only 9% of the total plastic waste in the world is recycled”. In India, meanwhile, according to the Union government, of the 25,000 tonnes of plastic waste generated every day, 40% remains littered and uncollected. So, what’s a possible solution?

Introducing Hi-Tech International, a Gurugram-based venture co-founded by brothers Mukul and Siddharth Sareen, which manufactures a plant-based biopolymer called Dr Bio. The venture claims that this bio-compostable plastic will dissolve in the soil. In the long run, the brothers believe that Dr Bio can be used to replace single-use and multi-use plastic products such as bottles, straws, cups, disposable cutlery, polybags, etc. with bio-compostable plastic.

(Above image of co-founders Mukul and Siddharth Sareen courtesy Hi-Tech International)

Hi-Tech is the first company in the country to manufacture plant-based bio-polymer. Their latest installment, Dr. Bio, has received approval from the Institute of Petrochemicals Technology (formerly known as Central Institute of Petrochemicals Engineering & Technology or CIPET). They believe this uniquely positions Hi-Tech to “redefine and transform the plastic industry towards sustainable bio-compostable plastic.”

Backed by a 250,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Ludhiana for commercial manufacturing of the biopolymer, the company believes that it’s “well poised to create a strong foothold for itself even as the government takes stringent measures to phase out single-use plastic”.

“Our bio granules are made entirely from different biomass materials, although there are different blends for end applications like bottle grade or film grade. One of the major components is starch, primarily corn starch. Other components include tapioca starch, lactic acids, poly-lactic acids and earth minerals for better tensile strength. These are all compostable and biomass materials that can be eventually eaten up by worms and disintegrated. Dr Bio can also assist as composting material. Most importantly, when it goes back to the soil, it works as a nutrient rather than a deterrent to the local environment,” says Mukul Sareen, Director of Business Development at HiTech Group, speaking to The Better India.

Arriving at Dr Bio

Incorporated in 2003, the company manufactures niche products for a variety of ventures across different industries like agriculture, automobile, steel, oil and gas, etc. Starting with just three employees, today the venture employs over 1100 people across seven manufacturing plants in India and one joint venture in the United States. The company also has licensed partners in Western Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. They export their niche technologies to 45 countries. With over 3,000 customers in India and about 10,000 worldwide, they’ve made their presence felt across different sectors with products like Keep it Fresh, which reduces post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables by increasing their shelf life.

“Our newest instalment is Dr Bio, in which we are making compostable polymer films and compostable polymer resins. We are making bioplastic granules from which various products can be made like bioplastic films, cutlery, bottles, disposables, etc. Plastic straws, for example, are a big menace. They don’t degrade for 1,000 years, whereas straws made from our bioplastics degrade in three months and completely compost within six months,” claims Mukul.

Since 2005, the Hi-Tech Group has been making other kinds of biodegradable plastics like photodegradable plastics, which breaks up in sunlight but are not compostable. They’ve also been making some enzyme-based bioplastics. However, in these products, the major plastic component is still fossil fuel. With a lot of bans on such plastics coming forward in Europe and the US, the venture took initiatives to come up with solutions.

“Back in 2017-18, when the Indian government issued very strict norms regarding plastic waste, Hi-Tech International became the second venture in India to obtain an EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) registration. That was when we decided that sooner or later, we have to move away from fossil fuel plastic to compostable plastics,” he says.

He further adds, “Instead of buying bio-polymers or bio-plastics from Western European countries or China, we started our R&D and investments in making our bioplastic granules. Although it took two or three years of development and nine months of testing with the CIPET lab, we finally got our approvals in June 2021.”

Since then, the company has been actively working with clients in the FMCG industry, liquor industry and e-commerce. They are also running a series of seminars and training programmes for various industries to raise awareness about this indigenous technology.

Prior to Dr Bio, all bio-plastics were being imported. “We are the first Indian manufacturers for compostable bioplastics that give the Indian end-user greater reliability to move away from imports. We are much more economical compared to the import options available,” he claims.

Expanding Influence

At the moment, their manufacturing capacity of compostable bioplastics is around 8,000 tonnes per annum. By January 2022, they are looking to expand it to around 21,000 tonnes per annum. Currently, Dr Bio is being sold both internationally and in India to e-commerce companies for their mailer composter bags and cosmetic companies for compostable bottling.

Products sold by FMCG companies have a shelf-life of about a month, and there is so much waste being generated because of it. They are also making disposable cutlery that goes to retail and trade channels, and are pitching them to various fast food restaurants across India.

They are also working with the paper industry, where a lot of paper is being laminated with plastic which renders the paper non-recyclable. Conventional plastic can be recycled, but paper laminated with plastic cannot. Hi-Tech is working with major paper manufacturers to help laminate their paper with bio-plastic.

There are also a lot of organisations that buy granules from Hi-Tech and they make carry bags, garment bags, shopping bags, waste disposal bags and biohazard plastic bags for hospitals.

In Tune With Regulations

According to this Times of India report, “The Union government, by amending the rules, is banning the use and manufacture of plastics thinner than 75 microns (plastic bags thinner than 50 microns were banned earlier) in a phased manner, from September 25 to December 2022.”

From December 31 next year, polythene bags under 120 microns will be banned. The ban will not apply to commodities made of compostable plastic. Although polythene bags with thickness less than 50 microns are already banned in the country, the government has chalked out a phased manner of banning-single use carry bags as well as other commodities.

“Although it’s more expensive in per kg terms, there are new laws in place where a 50 micron plastic will be replaced with 75 microns and then 120. This means that if you’re using a conventional plastic measuring 50 microns, you can still use a 50 micron bio-plastic without changing it to 75 to 120,” Mukul claims.

He continues, “The cost of bio-polymer starts around Rs 220 per kg, and it goes up to Rs 380/kg, depending on the application. Meanwhile, the cost of conventional plastic is around Rs 120/kg. Eventually, you’ll accrue a saving of 20-30% with the new laws in place due to minimum thickness limitations on traditional plastics that do not apply to compostable plastics. Bio-plastics have been excluded from the plastic waste management rules. The bioplastic we are making can go into the recycling stream with LDPE, which is the most commonly used plastic bag and HDPE. It can be mixed with these plastics in the recycling stream. If it ends up in a landfill, Dr Bio can completely vanish within a span of six months.”

Other advantages of adopting compostable bioplastics like Dr Bio is that they have the same tensile strength as conventional plastic, he adds. Physically, there is no visual difference between the two for the end consumer, and doesn’t require much adaptation.

“Our compostable bioplastics are processed at around 130 to 140 degrees Celsius at which most pathogens get killed. Given how desperate the plastic waste problem is in India, it has brought users closer to the realisation that we need to transition to materials like compostable bioplastics,” concludes Mukul.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

Like this story? Or have something to share? Write to us: contact@thebetterindia.com, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

A common phrase says ‘curiosity killed the cat’, but in the case of brothers Rohan and Nitin Gupta, it did quite the opposite. Here, curiosity led to a life-changing development, which further snowballed into a premium e-waste company, Attero Recycling. 

In the year 2007, Nitin and Rohan were looking for an electronic waste (e-waste) recycler to discard an old laptop. Unable to find one, the duo began Googling safe ways to dispose of the laptop. 

However, they failed to find an effective solution that didn’t incinerate or burn the waste. Could there be other options available? 

A few months of research into this led to the co-founding of Attero Recycling to provide end-to-end recycling solutions to electronic scrap such as television sets, computer monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, cables, circuit boards, lamps, calculators, phones, answering machines, DVDs, etc. 

Nitin, a B-tech degree holder from IIT-D and an alumnus of NYU’s Stern School of Business and Rohan, a BE graduate in Chemical engineering from REC Jaipur, channelised their expertise into developing a unique recycling process, which is a mix of mechanical and hydrometallurgical technologies that can extract 98% of metals from e-waste. They do this while ensuring low carbon dioxide emissions. The recovered metals include gold, silver, copper, tin, aluminium lithium, cobalt, manganese and nickel. 

Predicting the e-waste ‘tsunami’ 

With 48.5 million tonnes of e-waste generated across the world till 2018, the United Nations warned of an e-waste tsunami that is likely to come if stern measures are not taken to tackle the waste stream. 

At present, only 20% of it is globally recycled. 

To put things into perspective, the report said, “Imagine the mass of 125,000 jumbo jets — it would take London’s Heathrow Airport up to six months to clear that many aircraft from its runaways. If you find it difficult to envisage, then try the mass of 4,500 Eiffel Towers, jam them all in one space, side by side, and they would cover an area the size of Manhattan.”

When light is shed on India’s recycling capacity, the picture is not too hopeful either. We recycle only 2% of waste electronics, and that too, not in a very effective manner.

Players in the informal sector either burn the plastics to extract metals, incinerate or acid leach in dangerous conditions. 

The recovery rate of metals is dismal, which is ironic given that e-waste is valued at $62.5 billion annually, which is three times higher than the output of all the world’s silver mines, the same UN report underlines. 

While this report is fairly new, Nitin had predicted the massive increase in e-waste and its subsequent worth way back in 2010. He had told the Economic Times that e-waste is a billion dollar opportunity and that by 2021, India will produce one million tonnes of e-waste.

With this research and development, the brothers have been able to raise a total of $20 million in funding over four rounds from institutional backers such as Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Granite Hill India Opportunity Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Forum Synergies and International Finance Corporation.

Bringing an end-to-end solution

Attero has a dual model, one where they purchase the waste and other where they get paid. The company has an impressive clientele including Samsung, Acer, LG, Whirlpool, Godrej, Flextronics, Vivo, Oppo, Reliance Jio, MG Motors, and Maruti Suzuki.

The company also claims to be the only one to recycle Li-ion batteries irrespective of size, shape and chemistry in an environmentally friendly manner. Currently, at their Roorkee facility, they recycle close to a thousand tonnes of Li-Ion Batteries every year

“No other recycler in India has the capability to process Li-Ion batteries, as they often dismantle, sell or export the black mass,” adds Nitin. 

From a CFL bulb to industrial equipment, the company recycles more than 20 types of e-wastes in its facility that has capacity to treat 1,44,000 tonnes of waste annually. 

Achieving this feat was not easy, especially considering that in the 2010s, the term ‘e-waste’ recycling hadn’t penetrated the country. 

“When we started, the market had little awareness, let alone a strategy for effective disposal of e-waste. Many times, things like old phones and laptops were carelessly dumped in the open or sold off to the scrap dealers who in turn resorted to crude and highly unsafe methods for recycling, resulting in severe health and environmental hazards,” recalls Nitin.

So how did Attero make its way into a structural market that barely even existed? 

To begin with, a robust and regulated e-waste regime was designed that offered everything — from pick-up to collection, tracking of electronic assets, reverse logistics management, electronics asset recovery, data security, refurbishment, e-waste recycling and disposal all over India.

Next, they tied up with government-registered e-waste recyclers, who did not have an advanced technology to process the e-waste and extract every ounce of metal. 

The company adopts methods like Printed Circuit Board (PCB) recycling that involves recovery of copper, silver and gold from printed circuit boards, tin from tin/lead solder dross, Catalytic Converters to extract platinum, palladium and rare earths like Neodymium for magnets. All the recycled metals are sold at market prices. 

“Of the 300 patents applied for, we have been granted 27 global patents. We have made, and continue to make, significant investments in capex and R&D,”  he says.

Another factor that may have got Attero more brownie points are the on-site visits. The clients are encouraged to visit the plant and conduct a detailed environmental and technical evaluation before entering an agreement. Nitin says that they have not only retained all their clients, but have also added new ones every month. 

The company has been at the forefront when it comes to calculating the carbon credits generated per tonne of recycled electronic waste. 

“UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), the body of the United Nations, looked at our processes and agreed that the amount of energy required to extract one gram of copper materials from Attero’s process is significantly lower, as opposed to extracting the same gram of copper from a virgin mine, or any other known secondary sources. We have saved more than 1,00,000 metric tonnes of carbon so far,” says Nitin.

If today Attero can proudly claim to have a growth rate of 150% year on year, it is because various factors realised their roles.

“The awareness regarding e-waste disposal has grown exponentially in the last few years. Additionally, the implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulations has helped the industry grow. At present, 30 products are covered under the EPR regime. This number is expected to increase to 700 products within a year,” says Nitin.

The Gupta brothers are in the process of scaling their operations by 30,000 tonnes through setting up six franchises in various states of the country by the end of 2021.

“Our environment is a collective responsibility. We should all do our bit to preserve it and adopt sustainable measures. Let’s pledge to keep our environment and society clean and ensure that our e-waste is recycled in a scientific manner,” he adds. 

You can reach Attero here

Edited by Divya Sethu 

I recently watched a Netflix documentary Seaspiracy, which emphasised the much-ignored problem of plastic waste caused due to fishing nets. It was terrifying to learn that the great Pacific garbage patch alone consists of 86 per cent fishing nets of its overall plastic pollution.

Over 6,40,000 tonnes of fishing gear like nets, traps, pots and lines are dumped into the ocean every year. Their weight is equivalent to over 1,00,000 buses which adds to the pollution mainly consisting of plastic.

‘Ghost nets’ or ‘ghost gears’ are discarded and abandoned fishing nets that often entangle marine life, and kill them by accidental entrapment and choking.

To solve the massive environmental issue that affects marine life globally, a Pune- based company DSM Engineering Materials—that works in the field of nutrition, health, biosciences and sustainable living—is converting the discarded fishing nets into high-quality surfboards.

“The company entered an agreement with Starboard—a global leading waterspouts company that sells surf, windsurf, paddle and kiteboards—to assist in the effort,” says Dr Nileshkumar Kukalyekar, Product Manager Asia Pacific at DSM Engineering Materials.

He says that the 120-year old company always strives to bring solutions that help better the environment. “The company wanted to contribute meaningfully in terms of solving the global plastic pollution problem,” he adds.

Dr Nilesh says the abandoned fishing nets heavily impact the fishermen community living along the shores. “These ghost nets often get entangled in motors or rudders of the fishing boat. It also hampers the local flora and fauna, which impacts the biodiversity and fish population. The reduction in fish directly impacts the fishermen community’s livelihood,” he explains.

Addressing the problem, the company has recycled about 6,000 tonnes of nets into surfboards.

Dr Nilesh says that the fishing fraternity is roped in to trace and collect discarded fishing nets from the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Sharing the process, Dr Nilesh says, “The abandoned fishing nets are collected by fishermen locally. As the Indian coastline is vast, it is practically unfeasible to reach out to all the areas. Hence, we have tied up with local partners who collect these nets and transport them to the plant in Pune. The nets are then cleaned of all the dirt, seashells and other unwanted materials preparing them for a new lease of life.”

He says the nets are mixed with additives and undergo a process developed by the company. “The fishing nets are converted into granules and processed to turn them into fibreglass surfboards, which find a market across the globe. The primary material, granules, can be practically used to make furniture or other useful items as well,” Dr Nilesh says.

He adds that about 2,000 tonnes of such ghost nets are processed each year.

Dr Nilesh says that the product is high quality despite being made from a discarded and worn out material. “It is crucial to ensure performance and quality from the new product made from degraded material. The technology adopted by the company helps to change the properties of the deteriorated nets and enhance their quality into better raw materials. Developing technology for the same was a challenging task, but the experts have succeeded in achieving this over time,” he says.

Besides, he says that procuring fishing nets remains a never-ending challenge. “It is important to have like-minded people on ground and put dedicated efforts for the larger good. The fishermen do not earn from collecting the ocean waste, and it has to be a conscious effort to do the task,” he shares.

Dr Nilesh says the company plans to bring more sustainable solutions in the future to reduce the impact of CO2 emissions.

“We are glad that our initiative results in litter-free beaches and creates a safe and healthier marine environment with the help of local communities,” he adds.

Edited by Yoshita Rao

For Mumbai resident Amol Palshetkar, Friday mornings bring a different kind of joy. When the day begins, he is among the thousands who sit down to learn composting, potting and more, all through WhatsApp.  

The group, Marali Mannighe, means ‘back to soil’, and true to its name, imparts knowledge to several budding enthusiasts on how they can start their own gardening journeys through lessons in composting, terrace gardening, etc. 

Amol says, “My experience of learning aerobic composting has been very informative. All possible problems and solutions were explained in a step-by-step systematic way.”

Behind this urban gardening movement are Bharathi Aswath, Shubha Govindachar, and Priya Srinivasan, who took their love for gardening and nature to guide over 24,000 in areas of composting and vegetable gardening. 

While the trio would earlier conduct offline workshops, they soon realised many could not attend due to time and travel constraints. So they put their heads together and came up with a mode of learning that not only offered ease of use but was also a part of people’s daily lives. 

Learn composting through WhatsApp!

“As people are growing increasingly conscious of the quality of produce they consume, it has heralded a new wave in the grocery scene. People these days would love to spend time preparing and using compost in their gardens. Eating the vegetables you grow is a luxury unlike any other,” says Bharathi. 

The friends started their very first group in June 2017. 

Shubha explains, “It was tricky to break down the entire process into smaller steps that could then be easily communicated using WhatsApp to people all over the world. When we started off, there was a lot of experimentation. For instance, tailoring the video size to fit upload criteria, adding audio to the videos for clarity, etc. But we managed to get it right eventually.”

And how does the initiative work? 

“On the 8th of every month, we announce our new session and add a link for people to join the group. Over the next couple of days, the group begins filling up. Sometimes it reaches its capacity within an hour,” notes Bharathi.  

The session goes on for five days, during which videos, presentations, and PDFs prepared by friends are shared with the group. 

“We handhold the participants throughout their composting journey and detail pointers such as what is composting, how to proceed with making the first mix, etc. All the videos are shot by us,” says Bharathi. The participants are then encouraged to watch, replicate and come back with their doubts. 

The friends add that the success of the initiative is reflected in its wide reach. 

“When we started off initially, we had people from Bengaluru joining in, but now word has spread and people from across India — Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Pune, Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh — and even overseas — UAE, France, USA, England, Australia, Singapore, Bangkok, Malaysia — join in,” says Bharathi. 

But she notes that what sets them apart is not only their ingenious way of teaching but also the fact that their tips cater to city folk, who may be amateurs when it comes to composting. 

Useful hacks to make composting fun

“Make mistakes and go wrong,” she encourages in her videos, adding that the intention of the WhatsApp group is to have people understand the nitty-gritty of composting. “It’s only when they go wrong that they will come back and ask why, and then learn the right way.”

Another challenge that the friends encountered was the rise of commercially available compost kits, which are fairly expensive

“Our participants usually joke that if the process of composting is going to cost them so much, they would rather let their waste remain waste. So, we provide them with alternatives,” says Priya. 

As participants learn through the course of the five days, everything they need for composting can be found in the kitchen. 

“For composting you need three things — carbon, nitrogen and microbes. Kitchen waste is abundant in nitrogen. For carbon, crushed leaves, faded newspapers and cardboard can be used instead of purchasing coco peat from the market. Similarly, instead of purchasing microbial cultures, you can add buttermilk which is abundant in lactobacillus,” Bharathi adds.  

These and other such tricks are what make the sessions engaging and exciting. The groups are kept active for a total of 30 days to align with the time taken for compost to be ready. 

Seeing the results of their composting, people began requesting friends for similar sessions on vegetable gardening.  

They were more than happy to oblige.

Make compost. Use it in your own garden!

But as they soon realised, training people to grow their own gardens was not as easy as it was teaching them composting, which is a step-by-step process. This is because different vegetables need different growth conditions. 

So, the trio decided to focus on the basics and then move ahead from there. 

Bharathi explains, “The course on vegetable gardening spans five days. During this time students are familiarised with the basics of vegetable gardening, how to sow seeds, how to prepare the potting mix, protect the plants against pests, etc. Once participants feel confident with these aspects, they go on to address topics such as homemade pesticides, fertiliser, etc.”

She adds that one of the most common pesticides that they teach participants to prepare is the 3G mix — made with ginger, garlic and green chillies, crushed and soaked in water. Another is neem oil mixed with soap and water. 

The friends noticed during the sessions that people from bigger cities were often not comfortable with, or able to procure cow dung and cow urine. So they introduced a novel substitute. 

Bharathi explains, “All you need to do is insert a bag of compost into the water and continuously run aqua stones until bubbles are generated. This process multiplies the microbes in the compost. Jaggery is then added to the water and the set-up is left for 72 hours. The result is a mix abundant in microbes, which can easily substitute cow dung.”  

One of the participants, Umesh Kapadia from New Jersey, says he found the workshop on vegetable gardening “well designed”. 

“The course was great with easy-to-understand videos and notes. I learnt a lot and wish more people would undertake this workshop and experience the beauty of having your own garden,” he notes.  

Today, as the friends are flooded with messages from their participants along with pictures of their blooming gardens, they feel proud. 

“Being one of the first initiatives of using a social media platform — that is primarily used for chatting — to impart knowledge, is amazing. We are able to reach all kinds of people such as housewives, busy professionals, students, and gardening enthusiasts and train them in every respect, right from the choice of DIY containers for compost to the end product and use,” adds Shubha. 

Ask them if they foresee the venture growing in the time to come, and they affirm it. 

“That’s the magic of gardening. Once you start, there is a whole new world to explore,” says Bharathi. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

It was in 2013 that Ghaziabad-resident Ruchi Goel tried her hands at gardening for the first time. As someone with no prior experience or interest in the activity, the homemaker’s only intention then was to preserve the memory of her late mother-in-law by nurturing the latter’s garden.

But soon, gardening became Ruchi’s favourite hobby. She started buying new plants and scoured the internet for tips to improve her garden.

One day, while cleaning the store room of her house, she came across several items that she felt had a scope of upcycling. This included her husband’s old scooter, children’s bicycles, light bulbs, and tyres.

The homemaker decided to use her artistic prowess to create magic with this household junk and incorporated them in the garden for a storybook look — they all serve as planters and decor. 

“People come here to enquire where I purchase these decorative items from. Some find it hard to believe that I made them from scrap, including my family,” she says.

The garden also has over 1,000 ornamental plants, and vegetables including radishes, chillies, brinjal and okra. It also has a pond around which she grows several aquatic plants including lotus. 

Ruchi shares her journey of creating this fairytale garden:

Edited by Divya Sethu

In 2015, Nitin Srivastava was working in waste water management in a corporate. Having done a Master’s in environmental engineering, he was keen on developing solutions to pressing problems using technology. He also wanted to branch out on his own, and before doing so, he started initial research. 

To find out the issues faced by people on ground, he visited villages near his hometown of Kanpur, alongside other areas in Uttar Pradesh. 

As he travelled across these villages, he realised that solid waste management was a big problem.

“I visited villages, took some surveys and interacted with people. I found that there was no waste segregation happening. The second issue was that there were no people to pick up the waste. Even in areas with safai karmacharis (sanitation workers), they were dumping the waste all together in landfills,” Nitin Srivastava tells The Better India.  

After these surveys, Nitin zeroed in on two areas that he found lacking — solid waste management and industrial carbon capture. 

“Even in urban areas, while solid waste management solutions exist, most are just on paper. I started researching more on viable solutions and found that if segregation is done at source, the chain can be run efficiently. It’s very difficult otherwise to segregate waste when it is given in a mixed manner,” adds the 36-year-old. 

Nitin founded and registered his company called Greengine Environmental Technologies Private Limited in 2015. But it was only two years later, when he was armed with data and an idea, that he quit his job and started developing an incentive-based digital waste management ecosystem, which provides end-to-end solutions. Right from incentivising people to segregate waste at their homes to the final step of recycling the waste, Greengine’s G-Recyclers, a patented model, does it all. 

How it works 

G-Recyclers tested their model in Ishwariganj in 2018. They were subsequently incubated at IIT-Kanpur. What they do is ensure waste segregation at source, subsequent collection, and proper disposal of the waste. All this is done through their digital ecosystem. 

“A decentralised way of managing waste, I found, could be an effective solution. By engaging the public, using technology, and minimising use of infrastructure, we can create a sustainable product. We are basically enablers who bring the locals together with the recyclers and government. We have created a platform to do this in a digital manner,” explains the entrepreneur. 

What’s novel about G-Recyclers is the incentive they provide people for segregating their waste. 

Once the waste is given in a segregated manner, people receive a product like tea, soap, biscuit, sanitary pad, notebook, pen, spices, and detergent, or a discount at a local store. This way, local businesses also flourish, according to Nitin. 

“We have waste hubs in each gram panchayat. Here, locals can go and give their waste. There is a data person and sanitation worker at each hub. The mobile number and data of how much waste each person has disposed will be entered here. Credits are given depending on the quantity of waste. Once a person has 50 credits, he or she will be given a product worth Rs 10 or a discount voucher,” explains Nitin.

For every six gram panchayats, there is one common material recovery facility set up. One motor trolley will transfer the waste from each gram panchayat to this facility. From here, the segregated waste is sent to local recyclers in different categories. 

The waste is to be demarcated in eight categories, including organic, electronic, medical, paper, glass, rubber, metal, and plastic (disposable and multi-layered).  They have recycled 900 kg of waste so far. 

“Everything is powered by technology and the waste can be tracked from collection to final disposal. We provide a digital footprint of each gram of waste. We are also helping local retailers by promoting their products,” adds Nitin. 

Greengine received a patent from the government for their incentive-based waste management system.

The company was incubated at Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre, IIT Kanpur in September 2018. They replicated the model in 20 villages near Kanpur in October 2019. 

However, due to COVID, the operations were hampered.

“COVID caused a big challenge to us. Just as we were looking to expand, we had to restart. Currently, we have executed MoUs with six gram panchayats near Lucknow for implementing our model. We have also spoken to the Uttar Pradesh government and have done initial discussions to launch in 185 villages. We hope to reach 20,000 villages in the next three years,” says Nitin.

Another challenge faced was due to the bureaucracy, he adds. “Since we work on a bottom top approach, it is time consuming. We work on educating and empowering people in every village. This becomes a little tough to replicate. Another issue is the frequent transfer of officers. It causes a lot of delays in implementation,” says Nitin. 

‘Segregation at households is key’

But the light at the end of the tunnel is the behavioural change of villagers, especially women and children. 

“Since people have more time in villages, and value incentives matter to them, they have really started segregating waste. Even one single plastic bag is meticulously segregated by them. Major contributors to the success of our model are women and children. Their efforts are truly appreciable,” says Nitin.

“Compared to a few months ago, our village has become much more clean. We are also contributing to this and ensuring that we give each waste item in a separate fashion,” says Pooja, a resident of Anora Kala village where G-Recyclers is operational. 

The other big solution that Nitin is working on now is industrial carbon capture. Having worked on this during his MTech in environmental engineering from IIT Kanpur, the entrepreneur is now developing a technology for the same. Greengine has partnered with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for this project. 

“We are working on capturing industrial carbon dioxide through microalgae. This will help reduce carbon emissions. We will then convert it into products like biopolymers and biogas. The IOC is helping us and has funded this project. We will be deploying this by next year,” says Nitin. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

For Bangalorean Vishwanath Mallabadi Davangere, there is no such thing as a useless object or ‘waste’. Give him anything — discarded metal or plastic items, old gadgets, dysfunctional printed circuit boards — and he’ll create art out of it. From jewellery, murals and sculptures to abstract art, art installations, wall art, and even robots.

The Wipro executive who turned into an eco-artist after retirement buys e-waste from scrap dealers and recyclers but says that he is selective in choosing the ‘waste’.

“I don’t pick up everything, only those items which have scope for transformation. I extract copper, gold or multi-coloured wires, keyboards and computer components that are useful according to the texture, colour and forms,” the 60-year-old tells The Better India.

Vishwanath’s passion is particularly relevant in the current age, where India generates more e-waste than it can recycle. In 2019-20, the country generated a total of 10.1 lakh tonnes of e-waste. Of this, only 22.7 percent was collected, dismantled, and recycled or disposed of.

The rest ends up in landfills, exacerbating environmental issues.

The eco-artist has upcycled and transformed nearly 200 kg of e-waste into usable products and proposes eco-art as a means to deal with waste management.

Turning a hobby into a business

Vishwanath’s father, D M Shambhu, was a famous sculptor and painter, but he wanted his son to choose medicine and become a doctor. However, Vishwanath, who was interested in upcycling second-hand objects right from childhood, decided to pursue a BFA in Applied Art.

He later went on to work at Wipro in Talent Transformation, but even while he was a senior executive, he would involve in research and development in eco-art. “In my free time and during the weekends, I used to conduct experiments in e-waste and try to develop something unique,” he recalls.

He would dismantle computers, laptops, data cards, DVDs, VCRs, floppy drives, set-top boxes, old landlines and cordless phones, and even medical devices such as glucometers.

“I started this as a fun activity; creating small animals out of scrap from gadgets. I used to collect a lot of e-waste, and nobody knew what I was trying to do exactly,” says Vishwanath with a laugh.

“But upon learning about the implications of e-waste on the environment, I started creating murals and sculptures, and slowly it turned into a business, post my retirement two years ago,” he adds.

Vishwanath has now started selling his unique artworks and says he has buyers from Europe, the Netherlands, the US and also Delhi.

500+ artefacts, from e-waste

So far, the eco-artist has created more than 500 artefacts. These include a six-foot tall sculpture made from upcycled computer keyboard keys on a mannequin, and a landscape inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, using upcycled resistors on wood, which was later coated with clear epoxy resin.

Among his other artworks are a 42×38 inch Kamadhenu (a divine bovine goddess) created from upcycled keyboard keys on a sun board finished with resin, a deer made of discarded multicore cables, a bird made with electronic components, plants and flowers from upcycled sugar glucometers and computer parts, and eco jewellery from upcycled digital wrist watch parts.

He has also created a portrait collage of business tycoon Azim Premji using e-waste on wood. He has even transformed e-waste into wearable art by designing apparel for a fashion show at Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru.

However, the process of upcycling is not that easy, says Vishwanath. The work involves scrutinising the e-waste objects — the texture, shape, and colour etc, and visualising and conceptualising the final product.

“It takes just two-three minutes to create a piece of jewellery, but it might take weeks and months for sculptures. However, sustainable initiatives and upcycled art are nowadays in demand in multi-national companies opting for a sustainable culture,” he informs.

Winning accolades for his talent 

Vishwanath has been written about in the India Talent Magazine and has also given a talk at the first International Data Science Conference on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), on putting e-waste to good use.

His passion and talent is remarkable! pic.twitter.com/BdPWxEcOKh

— Indo Data Week for Sustainable Development Goals (@IndoWeek) December 3, 2019

The eco-artist has also written a paper titled ‘Upcycling for Sustainable Living, Complementing Circular Economy’ which was published by Springer Nature, Singapore, in 2020.

Meanwhile, Vishwanath is working on his next project, a 20×30 feet public art installation. He has already collected nearly 2,000 discarded parts of mobile phones, remote controls and calculators for this. He is also working on a mural installation and 3D sculpture which he proposes to display in the Bengaluru metro.

To know more about the artist and his work, visit his official website.

Edited by Asha Prakash. All images: Vishwanath Mallabadi.

Do you remember the arguments your mother had with the kabadiwala (scrap dealer) on a busy cleaning day, arguing about the rate for old newspapers and plastic knick-knacks? A 25-year-old from Delhi has capitalised on this unorganised scrap market and created a platform that helps people get rid of the scrap, minus the arguing part.

Founded by Mukul Chhabra in 2019, ScrapUncle is a Delhi-based startup which offers scrap recycling services via an online website and application. “My mama (maternal uncle) was a scrap dealer, and his work gave me the idea to do this on a larger scale,’’ he tells The Better India.

Hailing from Sonipat in Haryana, Mukul grew up with a business-oriented mindset. “I grew up in a home where my parents sent me to IIT Delhi saying ‘go and learn’. So I never worried about placements. It was always on my mind to start a business,” he says.

ScrapUncle is not his first try at business. Mukul started a business with his friends while he was in college. “I was in my second year of college, and we got funding too. After a year and a half, since we were all students and my co-founders wanted to continue studying, we shut the business down,” he says.

One man’s trash is another man’s gold

The idea of ScrapUncle started conceptualising in Mukul’s mind while he was still pursuing BTech.

“As a student, whenever I could find the time, I would visit scrap dealers in Delhi and try to find out the issues and gaps in the sector. I visited some markets and distributed a few pamphlets to get some response. I wanted to understand if there really is a need for a product like this in the market. It worked; the response was good, and I decided to go along with it,” he recalls.

“In my childhood, my brand new cycle got stolen from my home. Eventually, we found out a kabadiwala had stolen it. After this, my parents stopped letting any scrap dealers in the house. So there is an issue of safety,” he says, adding that he came across many more issues during his research.

“As kabadiwalas don’t always own shops, there is no on-demand service. You might need their service today and not find one. Then there’s a matter of pricing; every scrap dealer has different prices for items, which translates to time-consuming bargaining sessions. Then, there is a risk of weighing machines being manipulated. And I also noticed that there are no scrap dealing services available for high-rise apartments,” he explains.

Once Mukul got a handle on all these issues, he launched ScrapUncle in 2019, while still in college.

“But being a student, I was facing financial issues to fuel the company. Then in January 2022, I found my footing when the company received a grant from Columbia University. This helped me to manage the operations more efficiently.”

“At ScrapUncle, our collection agents are verified and are armed with all the necessary equipment such as scales, masks and gloves. This removes the safety issue. As for the pricing, we have fixed prices which we quote before the pickup, so there is no bargaining involved,” he notes.

ScrapUncle has collected 2000 tonnes of scrap from the Delhi NCR region with over 22,000 pickups so far.

Explaining the working of the platform, he says, “It is a different business model where our consumers sell to us instead of buying from us! And the platform is quite simple to use. One can download the application or log in to our website to schedule a pickup after checking out the rates. The consumer has to provide information about the amount of scrap while scheduling the pickup. Our verified collection agents pick up the scrap, after which the scrap is delivered to the fulfilment centre. Here, it is segregated into various categories like newspapers, electronics etc. They then go for recycling.”

He adds that they get around 600 kg of scrap per vehicle.

Sharks fight over ‘scrap’ equity

Mukul’s idea was able to impress the ‘sharks’ in Shark Tank Season 2 and threw them into a bidding war. He reveals that he was shortlisted for the first season of Shark Tank too, but the mail got lost in his spam!

“So this time, I was alert. I was in the United States on a work trip, for which I had spent quite a lot of money. Moreover, I booked the cheapest non-refundable flight back home to save money. That’s when I got the acceptance mail from Shark Tank Season 2. I cancelled my non-refundable flight immediately to make it to the audition. I was so jetlagged that day that even the Shark Tank team could see it,” he recalls.

He says, “Being selected among so many startups is exciting. The entire journey from auditioning and rehearsing to the two-hour-long pitch in front of the ‘sharks’ was amazing. I was quite nervous during the rehearsals when I was not even in front of the ‘sharks’, but on the final day, it went really well. The ‘sharks’ were so calm and made me feel at ease,” he says.

‘Sharks’ Anupam Mittal, Vineeta Singh, and Amit Jain kept counter-offering deals to Mukul, taking the company’s valuation from Rs 6 crore to Rs 12 crore in less than a minute, stated a Business Insider report. Finally, Mukul took up Amit Jain’s offer of Rs 60 lakh for 5% equity.

He informs that his platform got 30,000 signups after the episode aired. Neha Misra, a user of ScrapUncle, said, “Very professional service by ScrapUncle. Never knew recycling would be as easy as book…sell…relax. Definitely recommend recycling and doing your bit to protect the environment, and benefit from such services.”

As for the future, Mukul says, “For now, we want to tap the consumers in the Delhi NCR region, and then, expand to other metropolitan cities. We are also planning to make our weighing scales OTP enabled, so the consumers know that there won’t be any discrepancies in weighing the scrap.”

Edited by Pranita Bhat