Support Pankaj Arora’s Marathon Run for Ragpickers

We consider ourselves lucky to have friends and supporters such as these!

Pankaj Arora, recent MBA graduate and veteran of the London Marathon will be running the Mumbai Marathon on January 20, 2013. To make every stride count, Pankaj is raising funds to sponsor employment of ragpickers in safe and secures jobs cleaning up India’s cities. 

Definitely check out his Run for Ragpickers page here, and see how you can help Pankaj achieve his goal of creating employment for 10 more ragpickers. Ragpickers such as Lalbabu (pictured below) gain dignity, access to healthcare, savings accounts, and education for their children through inclusion in Waste Ventures’ environmental waste services to small cities across India.

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And it gets even better! Every donation will be matched 100% by a generous supporter, doubling the impact of every rupee you use to support Pankaj.

http://www.razoo.com/story/Run-For-Ragpickers

December 28, 2012Permalink Leave a comment

Help us Spark the Rise for Waste Pickers in India

In December Waste Ventures is participating in Mahindra’s Spark the Rise competition. We’re hoping to gain attention as well as funding for our attempts to clean up Indian cities. 

If you’re in India you can help us very simply by sending the following SMS to 54646:    

MHRISE<SPACE>P07382

or making a call to 022 6185 0895 (if busy, just trying again in a min – that means somebody else is voting for us!)

You can also, whether you’re in India or not, share our campaign page with your friends http://campaigns.wasteventures.org or directly link to our page on Spark The Rise.

7382-1353239595

December 13, 2012Permalink Leave a comment

Two Years And Counting

We recently passed the two year mark of our existence which made me ponder both our impact and the state of solid waste management. Three observations come to mind:

  • What we are trying to do resonates with society, with government officials, and with waste picker organizations. We are clearly on to something here. It takes 2 seconds for anyone living in India to understand the order of magnitude of the problem and that the status quo is not working. The same (much to my initial surprise) is true of municipalities who also understand the current system is not working and are looking for a solution. We were especially thrilled when former India Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh endorsed our solution as a proactive way to both change the system and employ waste pickers. Waste picker groups similarly realize their livelihood is threatened and a new commercial approach is needed. Agitation or small-scale employment with existing contractors is a temporary measure at best. As a testament to the power of the idea, we were able to create the first waste picker-inclusive integrated solid waste management contract in India. As an even greater testament to the idea, the work was done brilliantly with over 3000 tons of waste being collected including the backlog. We also see other waste picker groups joining us and shifting to a commercially-oriented model that environmentally processes waste to sell the by-products.
  • That having been said, we’ve also realized one can’t win playing by the current broken rules of solid waste management. To go through a tender process is timely, costly, and rarely decided on merits of the bidders. The key skill required to be successful in the process is not a strong track record of proper solid waste management but a knack for bidding on government contractors. We have gone up against everyone from equipment providers to armed guard contractors! Even if one successfully navigates the tender process and are doing an excellent job, seldom is one able to keep the position for very long – often due to political interference in payment. This is why we’ve made two critical changes in our model. First, we’ve figured out a way to create an even more profitable model than the status quo that does not require municipal payment – thus avoiding the tender process all together. Second, we created a methodology to determine the minimum viable product of integrated solid waste management in any new opportunity – learning quickly and avoiding heavy capital expenditure until we know the model that will work.
  • Local relationships are critical Especially in small towns – having a trusted individual/ organization with the town officials and people breaks down barriers to public collaboration while also keeping a good pulse on any funny business. While we learned this the hard way in Osmanabad, we’ve created a joint venture with Basix in Madhya Pradesh and are exploring opportunities with an upstanding local businessman in Kerala.

No doubt a challenging process – but we look forward to changing the way garbage is handled first in India and then all over the emerging world!

Delhi’s Controversial Incinerator Exceeds Emissions Standards 4 Times out of 10

On four occasions out of ten, levels of Particulate Matter (PM) atDelhi’s controversial Okhla waste to energy facility have exceeded thestandard of 150 mg/Nm3, according to India’s Ministry of Environment& Forests.

As the controversy over India’s second mass-burn incineration plant (the first one was built in 1987 and failed within three years) has begun to cool down, the real test begins. The plant has incinerated almost 30,000 tons of mixed garbage, including recyclables and organic waste that could have been recovered for compost or biogas, both much cleaner methods of processing even if they were staying within the environmental parameters set by India’s national waste management standards.

But they are not. Rather, the plant has been compliant with MSW Rules only 60% of the time, exceeding particulate matter emissions standards the other 40% of the time. Particulate matter is what causes respiratory problems that make Delhi lungs look like smoker lungs next to people who live in rural areas.

What I would also want to know is the level of dioxin emissions. Dioxins are among the most toxic persistent organic pollutants, that can cause reproductive, developmental, immunology and hormonal problems, and also cause cancer. They are most often generated when materials containing chlorine are burned, as happens in Delhi’s newest waste management toy at Okhla.

I just checked google maps and calculated this incinerator to be only 6 km (3.7 mi) away from my home. Here’s hoping it hurries up and fails faster than it’s predecessor at Timarpur.

March 17, 2012Permalink 3 Comments

What are the considerations for waste picker ownership?

Currently we are in the process of studying the major considerations for waste picker ownership of a garbage company. Together with our partner Basix, Tiffany has been working hard collecting and analyzing both primary and secondary data.

We started with a polling of waste picker values, preferences, and major concerns in Indore where Basix works. Survey outcomes will then inform the process of structuring a legal entity that protects waste picker interests.

Interestingly, preliminary findings indicate that waste pickers are overwhelmingly interested in increased income, and only then in savings and loans. Opportunities for leadership, respect, or recognition are valued by a significantly smaller portion of the population.

February 14, 2012Permalink Leave a comment

Help restore 500 waste pickers’ burnt down homes

Early in the morning about a week ago a fire broke out in the waste picker slum called Ghazipur Dairy. Here hundreds of families live in plastic and bamboo shacks, meaning that the fire spread quickly. In only a couple of hours more than 350 families had lost their homes and all their belongings. This, during the coldest season of the year. Please help us support these families to rebuild their homes and protect them against the cold.

Help support our campaign to raise money for the waste pickers in Ghazipur who lost their homes last week. Pass this forward (share/like/tweet) and if you can please donate on GlobalGiving: http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/help-restore-500-waste-pickers-burnt-dow…

February 10, 2012Permalink Leave a comment

New site aims to achieve segregation at source in Chennai

A new site called Kuppathotti (http://www.kuppathotti.com) has been launched in Chennai to help local residents there segregate and get their recyclable waste picked up. Through an online service where residents request a pick-up, then get paid for the recylable materials that are weighed and collected at their door-step they hope to get IT-savvy residents involved in segregating and recycling their waste.

It's definitely an interesting concept to engage upper middle class residents to separate and segregate their waste, engaging them in a collection system that feels "modern" and "high-tech". This route of engaging and marketing to richer and IT-savvy residents might be a successful one. My question with the project would be whether they are in any way engaging existing kabadi-wallahs or waste pickers who are already active in collecting various recyclable materials? 
January 4, 2012Permalink Leave a comment

MSNBC – India is home to greatest number of child laborers in world

Channi Anand / AP

Indian rag picker children walk with rods fitted with magnets as they look for recyclable spare parts at an automobile yard on the outskirts of Jammu, India, Dec. 10. India remains home to the greatest number of child laborers in the world despite efforts by successive governments to address the problem through compulsory education and anti-poverty programs.

Don’t forget to watch our video clip to see what we believe is the most effective way to get these children out of the dump yards and into school:

http://bit.ly/uffyyR

December 23, 2011Permalink Leave a comment

The Story of Rajiv and millions of Waste Pickers around the world

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCoEHtUrQ0g?wmode=transparent]

We recently worked with the guys at Good Line to help us distill our story into less than three minutes of video. We believe this video is a great tool to communicate the urgent need for an environmentally friendly approach to solid waste management that includes the millions of vulnerable waste pickers toiling for a living in developing cities’ garbage. We need your help to tell this story. Please share this link with everyone who might be interested in solutions for the 50 million people living from waste picking activities in countries around the world.

December 16, 2011Permalink Leave a comment