- income generation

-job creation

-vocational training

- ecological sustainability

-environmental health

-environmentally sound technologies

-pollution reduction

-resource management

-urban greening

- sanitation

-waste-management and treatment

Level of Activity: National

Ecosystem: Tropical/Sub-Tropical

The initiative's purpose was raise awareness among the general public and specifically in the family as a unit that garbage utilisation is a better method of waste management than just garbage disposal. It further drew attention to the fact that rag pickers, many of them children, make their living by picking recyclables such as paper, plastics, rubber, glass, metal from garbage which they sell to recyclers but expose themselves to dirt and diseases while doing so. Therefore, citizens were motivated by means of different kinds of communication material to separate the garbage in their houses before giving to 'waste retrievers'. Once rag pickers, these retrievers received literacy and training and now pick up separated garbage from homes, offices, shops and institutions. Motivated citizens' forums established in different localities monitor the separation of garbage.

The wet waste is transported in tricycles to composting sites in parks belonging to the Corporation, to be composted in lined pits, by trained waste retrievers. The dry waste is sold to recycling agents and the soiled and toxic components in the garbage are left in the Corporation bins for safe disposal. For this service, citizens contribute to a fund that they manage, from which monthly salaries are disbursed to the waste retrievers and supervisors, breakfast provided, tricycles and composting sites maintained. CEE trains the supervisors, waste retrievers, citizens' forums, constructs composting sites, tests and markets the compost. In Bangalore, a city level committee has formed - 'Swabhimana' which includes officers from the Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) besides NGOs. Training of health officers, engineers, Corporation workers, doctors, nurses and other para-medical staff for better management of general as well as bio-medical waste has been done at the instance of Swabhimana.

CEE has set up several such waste management models in other cities and towns of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and is now helping Municipal Corporations in Delhi and several towns in Himachal Pradesh for planning and executing such programmes in their respective states.