From dump to data: How this start-up is fixing India's waste management issue
During their research and survey conducted with an NGO at the dumping ground, they found that the average life expectancy of people residing in the vicinity of the dump site was 37 years. Moreover, the Deonar dumping ground was centrally located in Mumbai. The duo realised that such incidents would begin to impact the entire city soon; at that moment, the idea for the waste management firm ReCircle was born.
'From the Deonar dump site, I think over the next four to five years, Gurashish and I would have visited almost 40 dump sites in different parts of the country, and the situation is as bad as it is in Mumbai. So, that's how our journey began in 2016,' says CEO and Co-founder Nainani.
ReCircle is focused on building a circular future in the country. It has so far diverted more than 169,000 tonnes of waste across more than 310 cities in India, partnering with over 45 processing and more than 400 collection partners. Its key initiatives include ClimaOne (a tech-enabled waste supply chain tracking platform), Plastic EPR Services, and Textile Recovery Facility (TRF). ReCircle has impacted more than 3,500 Safai Saathis and works with over 60 brands, such as Hindustan Unilever and UNDP India.
ReCircle was also the winner of India's Top Innovative MSME of the Year – Small, at the ET MSME Awards 2024.
Waste not, want not
In 2016, the company started with a B2C model but pivoted to B2B in 2018, realising that larger players and producers of plastic packaging must be held accountable for the waste they generate.
ReCircle primarily focuses on the dry waste sector. Its major service includes helping brands like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Mondelez—essentially FMCG companies—in achieving plastic neutrality while complying with plastic waste management or the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulation.
The company's ClimaOne platform, which was launched last year, is in an inclusive model where all stakeholders of the waste management supply chain—local scrap dealers, aggregators, and waste management companies—are onboarded. This model includes a collection partner app and a web-based dashboard for the brand owner.
'So, when a brand buys plastic credits from us, they're able to see the entire track and trace of where the material was, who collected it, what the quantity is, what the quality is, and where it has been finally used for recycling itself. Now this data is being used for, of course, their EPR compliance-based reporting, but also they're using it for their SGD (Sustainable Goals Development) reporting globally. So, ClimaOne essentially brings in transparency and traceability in this informal waste management sector,' he said, adding that initially, it was quite difficult to get the collection partners on board because they're largely informal in nature and are not used to working on technology platforms.
ReCircle operates its own collection units in Mumbai, where it handles the collection, sorting, and segregation of materials before selling them to recyclers.
Honey products manufacturer Honey Twigs has been working with ReCircle for the past four years. The company uses food-grade plastic as its primary packaging material, as they could not find an affordable and environmentally friendly packaging solution with a shelf life of 18 months. 'Till the time we don't find such an option, we want to make sure we are discarding our product waste responsibly. For this EPR responsibility, we hired ReCircle, which has helped us neutralise our environmental footprint. They helped us in responsibly discarding our return or unsold stock. The only other option is to hand it over to the municipal corporation, who simply throws it on an open dump. So, having such a partner helps us as a sustainability brand,' says Jigar Mehta, Co-founder, Honey Twigs.
Future
ReCircle is now working on PET flakes, derived from small fragments of PET bottles. These flakes can be recycled and used as raw material for manufacturing various products, including furniture and packaging materials. A pilot is being conducted in North India, with operations set to commence this month.
ReCircle is also working on setting up a recycling infrastructure and collaborating with MSME recyclers who face challenges in upgrading their capacities or achieving the desired quality output.
'So, we're partnering with MSME recyclers where we are going to work with them on a contract basis. This will help them as well as us in scaling up our capacities for recycled content. We have the supply chain in place, and we have the customers in place, and as per the EPR requirement, there's a mandatory requirement for brands to use recycled plastic in their supply chain itself. So that's where we see the demand growing not just in India but globally as well,' says Nainani.
Other than this, ReCircle will be expanding from plastic waste to textile waste, and research is currently going on around it.
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