In the coming three months, we will be working with SweepSmart!, to execute a pilot that will help clean the streets of Bangalore and potentially more of India. SweepSmart is a social enterprise that aims to clean India’s streets and empower the informal waste sector by incorporating European waste management knowledge.
India has a huge waste problem, with streets and rivers becoming increasingly polluted. In the informal sector, waste pickers are frequently exploited and work under miserably conditions and have a highly fluctuating income. In this project, we will test a pilot plan, in cooperation with SweepSmart!, that may eventually evolve into a system of micro franchisees that do collection, sorting and recycling. This would increase the capacity of waste sorted and hence stabilise the income of the waste pickers and reduce waste that goes to the landfills. The pilot will involve two sorting sites in Bangalore, run by WWM&CS (Waste Wise Management and Consulting Services) and Hasiru Dala, to prove the operational viability of the project, where we aim to optimise the sorting and collection process. By the end of three months, we hope to have implemented an effective collection system, through the usage of an application called IGotGarbage, and implemented a conveyor belt among other things to increase sorting efficiency.
