A journey from software to separating trash

When IT professional Charvi Parikh first landed in The Netherlands years ago, she was surprised to see people in her apartment block separate their trash into dry and wet waste—a practice that was alien to people back in Mumbai.

Parikh found out that the municipality in Holland provided separate dustbins to each household to dump their wet and dry garbage. The wet garbage was used for composting into manure for plants. The dry waste was collected and recycled.

This process gave her a new idea. She felt that if dustbins for different types of waste could be set up in colleges, corporate canteens, and wedding halls it would assist the municipality besides help transform the mindsets of people towards separating waste.

Estimates suggest that Mumbai generates about 7,000 tonnes of solid waste every day and it gets dumped at the Deonar landfill.

“I felt there was tremendous scope for a waste segregation venture in Mumbai, where garbage flows quicker than the Mithi River. All the garbage that gets dumped at Deonar is not for the landfill, and a lot of it can be recycled and composted by separating it at source,” says Parikh who holds a masters degree in mathematics and computers from the US.

Thus, in July 2010 was born ‘me2green’, with an initial funding of Rs40,000 from UnLtd India, a launch pad for social entrepreneurs.

“We usually have ‘bin hostesses’ or ragpickers visit large events such as weddings and festivals, and directly collect and separate the waste in front of people,” says Parikh.

“This way, people get exposed to the concept of separating waste,” she points out.

Four distinctly coloured dustbins are set up at the event venue to help people throw the right waste into the right bin.

“Yellow dustbins are for plastic items, blue for paper and green for wet waste, including leftover food,” says Parikh.

Red dustbins are for non-recyclable items such as chocolate wrappers and thermocol. These are sent to the municipality for proper disposal.

“Waste from the yellow and blue bins go to the recycling units, while those from the green bins go for composting to get converted into manure for plants,” says Parikh.

She explains that at a recent wedding lunch for about 500 guests, ‘me2green’ demonstrated its concept.

It collected about 10 bags of waste near the food court, of which, two bags of organic waste were sent to the composting site, while five bags of plastic and two bags of cardboard waste were sent to the recycling unit.

“The last bag that was filled with non-recyclable waste was left for the BMC for collection.”

The venture has tied up with Stree Mukti Sanghathan which works with women ragpickers, says Parikh. “We hire these women as bin hostesses and they get paid about Rs150-250 per day.”

The venture aims to help over 30,000 people get used to the waste segregation idea over the next three years.

“I felt that such a model will not just help ragpickers make additional income and help keep the environment clean, but workers at recycling units can receive cleaner items. This will eventually reduce the BMC’s burden,” says Parikh.

‘me2green’ plans to visit at least 10 big canteens (colleges and corporate houses) this year to demonstrate the concept. “After meeting authorities at the canteen, we do a pilot for three to five days and convince them to adopt it on a permanent basis,” says Parikh.

Although the capital requirement for ‘me2green’ is not exorbitant like other ventures, Parikh says funding is required to pay the bin hostesses and to set up dustbins during the pilot.