Urgent need for Plastic Waste Management in Rural India

Rural India accounts for 45% of consumer goods sales (over Rs. 350,000 crore). Most of these products are wrapped in plastic packaging. After use of the product, the villagers don't have any easy way to dispose off this plastic. Hence they burn it or dump it in the neighborhood causing air, water and soil pollution.

This pollution is not just detrimental to human beings but animals on land as well as water too. Our estimate is that rural India itself generates over 1 million tons of plastic per year!

Challenges for Waste Management in villages:

–Villages are geographically spread out and volume of plastic waste per village is usually low

–Most flexible plastic packaging is non-recyclable, no or low economic value and very light

Hence financial viability for local waste collectors is difficult.

Green Communities Foundation aims to create a workable model for plastic waste management starting with Raigad District in Maharashtra. Swades Foundation is our on-ground partner for the same. Our aim is to target 400+ villages (over 20000 households) across 7 talukas of Raigad and make them plastic waste compliant i.e. no littering, dumping of burning of waste.

Our solution:

1. We are providing reusable bags to each household so they can store their dry waste in the same.
2. Training programs in each village help villagers understand how segregation needs to be done
3. Regular monitoring ensures compliance of the process
4. Each village is also provided a bin where the villagers can deposit their dry waste once the bag fills up
5. We work with local aggregators (kabadiwalas) to ensure they pick up the accumulated waste at the village. We need to provide them gap funding to ensure their business is financially viable.
6. The waste collected is then subsequently sent for co-processing/ recycling. 

Our estimate is that 20,000 households in Raigad together can save almost 225 tons of plastic waste from dumping or burning in just one year.