Green Communities Foundation is a non profit in the area of Waste Management in Mumbai. Our aim is to save waste from getting dumped, littered or burnt through segregation at source, composting and recycling. We were set up in 2017 and work in Mumbai and rural Maharashtra.

Since the start of the lockdown, Green Communities Foundation (GCF) has been engaged in providing relief packages to needy families in Mumbai city.

We have effected the distribution of nearly 18,000 relief kits to at-risk families all over the city. While the city tries to inch back to “normalcy”, the issues being faced by the underprivileged communities persist.

Project Two Good - Collect Plastic, Get Ration!!

Ragpickers form an integral part of the informal Waste Management system across the country. They rummage through mixed waste and salvage valuable material to earn their livelihood. They are barely able to make Rs. 200-400 per day.

A type of waste which even the ragpickers don't pick up but which can cause a lot of harm is thin plastics and wrappers. They cannot be recycled, have no economic value and get littered, burnt, dumped or enter our water bodies.

Project Two Good involves encouraging ragpickers collect this post consumer plastic waste (especially low economic value waste such as food packets and containers, thin plastics, sachets, Multi Layer Plastic, etc.) [Good 1] which can then be exchanged for an equivalent quantity of dry ration [Good 2].

How does this work?

We are adding over 1500 ragpickers to this program in Mumbai and they will bring in the above mentioned waste to the local dry waste centre in the community, where it is weighed and sorted.

Using the formula 1 kg plastic waste = 1 kg dry ration, these ragpickers are provided with mixed ration for the amount of low value plastic waste brought in by them. This will include grains, pulses, flour, etc.

The plastic waste collected is sent for responsible recycling/ co-processing at cement factories.

What would be the funds used for:

GCF has calculated that the per kg cost for the project would be INR 100/-. For e.g.- To remove 100 kg of low value plastic waste from our environment and provide 100 kg of ration to needy ragpicker families, the cost would be INR 10,000/-.

GCF has already collected 250 kg of plastic waste in the last two months and donated 250 kg ration. We now aim to collect 15 tons of plastic waste and donate 15 tons of ration to the ragpickers over the next 6 months.