waste management

Once called ‘Gobar Basti’, Silluk village in Arunachal cleaned up its act through a youth-led movement. Today, it's featured in the CBSE Class 3 EVS textbook.

Hulladek Recycling began with a simple idea: treat e-waste not as junk, but as a responsibility. Over the years, they’ve helped divert 15 million kg of electronic waste from landfills while quietly building awareness in schools, homes, and offices across India. Their work is slow, steady, and deeply necessary.

You might think your rubbish ends with the bin, but for someone else, that is just the beginning. Discover how small and thoughtful changes at home can lead to safer working conditions for the people who handle your waste every day.

Sahar Mansoor, the woman behind Bare Necessities, took an ‘accidental entrepreneurial’ leap that reshaped her life and the future of eco-friendly skincare. From humble beginnings in a garage to creating a zero-waste brand, she has saved over 68 million units of plastic and diverted 155,000 kg of waste, all while empowering women in sustainable jobs.

Inspired by a neighbourhood kabadiwaala, Henik Gala and Shreyas Jalapur built ScrapJi — a tech-enabled scrap collection startup that now recycles over 10,000 kg of waste every month in Thane. Their mission? A trash-free India by 2030.

In the hours after every IPL match, when thousands have left the stadium, Bengaluru’s Team Saahas and SWMRT get to work—clearing the waste, sorting recyclables, and showing how citizen-led action can fill systemic gaps.

Plastic Odyssey, a 40-metre floating lab, is on a global mission to combat plastic pollution by recycling waste into valuable resources. Docking at ports worldwide, it empowers communities with sustainable recycling solutions and innovative technologies to fight plastic waste at its source.

What do a chip packet, an apple core, and old newspapers have in common? They’re part of the 1,50,000 tonnes of waste India generates daily. This Earth Day, uncover how much waste one person really creates—and how that small pile adds up to one of India’s biggest environmental threats.

Led by IAS officer Manoj Satyawan Mahajan, the Aama Sundargarh Swachh Sundargarh initiative has transformed rural waste management in Odisha. Engaging over 470 women, it has processed 360 metric tonnes of plastic waste and generated Rs 17 lakhs in revenue, empowering rural women and promoting sustainability.

At Merino, the focus is not only on reducing, reusing and recycling but also on spotting potential in every fragment of waste. Here's how the model is helping them balance profitability and sustainability.