Bangalore, like many other cities in developing countries, has outgrown its infrastructure. It generates 2000 tonnes of garbage a day of which the Bangalore City Corporation and the Bangalore Development Authority clear only approximately 60%. Consequently, there is a huge backlog of uncleared waste cluttering the city. Bangalore has no official waste dumping sites and there is only one garbage treatment plant which handles 200 tonnes a day. In the absence of dumping sites, the garbage collected by the BCC and the private trucks gets dumped along the highways, near the slums and the outskirts of the city. This causes irreversible damage to the environment and the health of people living nearby.

Bangalore has an estimated 35,000 waste pickers, mostly women and children, who pick out discarded waste materials like pieces of paper, plastic, metal and glass from the dumped garbage and rubbish heaps. These materials are sold to a number of small recycling industries in the outskirts of the city. Waste picking forms their only form of livelihood. Although waste picking forms the basis for a web of recycling activity, it remains unrecognized and unregulated. The socioeconomic situation of the waste picking women and children is very vulnerable and they receive no institutional nor government support.

In Bangalore, as in every Indian city, therefore exists two systems of waste management side by side. The formal system, operated by the municipal bodies, looking upon waste as a health and environmental hazard and focussing on removal of garbage from sight. The informal system, operated by the waste pickers, who look upon waste as an economic source. The informal sector accounts for 15% of the waste retrieved from street and dump sites for recycling purposes.

In 1994, a Bangalore based organisation Mythri Seva Samithi, in short called as Mythri, having many years of experience in working with streetchildren, initiated a project to combine the recognition of the waste pickers with an improved urban solid waste management in the city. The NGO started a pilot-project in one area of the city. They trained streetchildren which were already involved in ragpicking and educated the local residents on how to minimize and separate domestic waste. The children collected household garbage from door to door, transported it by cycle cart to a nearby site for segregation into dry waste, which was used for recycling and wet waste, which was converted into compost. By selling the compost to the nearby farmers, the plastic and metals to the recycling industries and by imposing a monthly 'garbage' fee on the local residents, the children could generate some income.

After the experimental phase, the project of Mythri, now popularly called 'Waste Wise', decided to expand the project to other areas in the city. The door to door collection of garbage and treatment near the source proved to be very successful either in social (improvement of living conditions of the streetchildren) and in environmental (garbage collection and treatment) aspects.

However, in order to expand the project to eight areas in Bangalore, some investments had to be done. Four areas to do the small scale composting had to be acquired, transportation means (four wheeler, bycyle carts) were necessary and education materials had to be produced. Furthermore, staff had to be hired such as community organizers, a vermicompost technician and a microbiologist, some field supervisors and a project-manager to be able to manage the expansion of the project.

Through a local fund-raising tour in 1994, the project collected Rs. 50,000 from church organisations, municipal bodies and local residents. At the same time, Both ENDS was requested to assist 'Mythri' in locating suitable financing sources and suggested the Dutch 'Environment NGO Fund' which is based in Delhi. A large grant was provided for expansion of the project for a period of two years. The Dutch 'Environment NGO Fund' provided the real flip necessary for the project. Aim of the project is to become financial sustainable after a few years. Since the project generates income for the streetchildren, there is only a need for some new investments after several years.

After a few years of operation, Waste Wise has gained adequately visibility and its approach has been adopted in various Indian Cities. The project also shifted its emphasis. Instead of executing all activities, i.e. take on community organising, composting, rehabilitation of rag pickers, liaisoning with Municipal officials to do awareness raising, Waste Wise redefined its role. It is now more involved in providing technical and managerial know how to community residents groups.

However, its core activity still remains identifying, training and integrating waste pickers in the decentralized, community based solid waste management systems.