Urban India generates 40 million tons of rubbish each year, a
figure that is growing by more than two million tons ever year.
Just 25 percent of that rubbish is collected by government
contractors and there is little recycling; the rest is dumped and
left to rot, producing methane, which is 23 times more harmful to
us than carbon dioxide.
Waste Ventures is a
social enterprise aims to build a model in waste management that
empowers the waste collectors, gives them financial benefit and has
a positive impact on the environment. It was founded by social
entrepreneur Parag Gupta, who previously worked at the Schwab
Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
The business has both a non-profit (Waste Ventures) and a
Capital Partners) division. First of all it is focusing on
creating waste picker cooperatives -- business units owned and
operated by the waste pickers themselves who go door to door to
collect people's and companies' waste. Waste Capital Partners finds
investment to feed into Waste Ventures. Waste Ventures takes a
minority stake in each of the cooperative businesses in return for
Next, Waste Ventures offers these companies incubation,
including training in processing waste, learning to compost the
organic material, which makes up around 50 percent of the total
urban trash. The resulting bio-fertiliser can be sold to rural
farms (currently biofertiliser production in India only meets 1.5
percent of the demand).The composting process helps to save 60 kg
of CO2 per ton of organic waste.
The 30 percent of waste that is recyclable (the
paper, glass and plastic) can also be separated and sold. This
leads to an 80 percent reduction in landfill, and a saving of 20
tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere each year.
As a result of making these CO2 savings, the cooperatives end up
earning carbon credits. Waste Ventures then helps give these
communities access to global carbon markets (through Waste Capital Partners), which
would otherwise be beyond easy reach.
The water pickers are also given mandatory protective clothing,
which helps improve their health and life expectancy. Through Waste
Ventures, they can also expect to raise their earnings from an
average of $1.50 (97 pence) per day by recycling scraps of garbage
found in landfill sites to around $7 (£4.55) per day.
Waste Ventures estimates that there are 1-1.5 million people who
live off scrap materials and recyclables. Having started work in
three cities in 2011, the company plans to set expand to 200 by
2013. The company will focus on cities with populations of less
than 500,000 people because these cities are closer to the farms
that could use the compost and they tend to be less prepared to
deal with the growing waste problems.
Waste Ventures has already been recognised by the WWF as one of the 50 Green game-changers. It is currently
focusing on growing to more cities in India and developing a
cheaper waste collection handcart with the help of MIT graduate
For more information about the initiative check out their blog,