Waste Management Facility
eArth Samvarta Foundation is an award-winning non-profit dedicated to Environment, Animal Welfare, Clean Energy and Climate Change. Waste affects all the above-mentioned core pillars of eSF. Waste in India is mostly dumped in landfills or is burnt and threatens animal and birdlife who confuse trash for food. With biodegradable waste rotting in landfills to produce methane, waste also contributes to global warming. Yet, waste can be a resource to produce clean energy. Past projects by eSF on climate change mitigation include- rejuvenation of wetlands in Ayodhya and a mega tree plantation drive targeting 15,000 trees in Ayodhya. eSF has been consistently cleaning Ayodhya’s Saryu River and other wetlands. The team has also been working for the health of marginalized communities in Ayodhya.
Additionally, in its animal rescue work, eSF deals with many cases of animals (especially cattle) who are forced to feed on plastic bags. This inspired eSF to go beyond clean up initiatives and instead address the root problem of waste in India- the country is missing an efficient and ethical supply chain of waste which optimizes waste as a resource. Instead, the country dumps waste into landfills and water bodies, compelling historically marginalized communities to manually salvage recoverable waste. eSF’s 360-degree Waste Management Facility is driving innovation with our collaborators TrashCon and Bioen for environmental conservation with the goal to reduce and ultimately eliminate the trash that is sent to our landfills and water bodies.
According to CGN Global, in Waste Management 70% of the money is spent on collection and close to 30% on transportation of the collected waste. Thus leaving no money for the treatment of waste. This is why moved eSF to design a 360-degree waste management facility which processes and treats most types of waste and converts them into raw materials which can be optimised by other manufacturing industries. This would increase the efficiency of the waste supply chain and would also reduce the environmental footprint of waste since we would then use waste as a resource instead of dumping it into our landfills and water bodies.
The 360-degree facility would also improve the working conditions of the ragpickers by enabling their transition from landfills to a safe and scientific workplace. The segregation technology by Trashcon is an award-winning solution which helps segregate mixed waste and has been employed by many institutions like Airport Authority of India, Adani port, Coimbatore Municipality. Nearly 1000 tons of Municipal waste has been diverted from landfills with the help of the segregation unit. Trashcon’s solution has 3 patents filed and 1 international patent published. The technology has been covered in 50+ media publications globally. Bioen’s biogas production technology was identified because of its high efficiency and environmental friendliness. The technology uses lesser water and electricity than market solutions and also produces relatively more energy from a given amount of waste (60 cubic meters/tonne per day).
In our 360 degrees approach, eSF aims to tackle the upstream (waste generators and waste collectors) and the downstream (manufacturers for whom the recycled waste serves as raw material inputs) and therefore act as a hub which uses its distinguished management to convert the discarded waste for one into a wealth reinforcing raw material for another. eSF shall work on an open to social audit model with significant targets measured in the decline in direct dumping of waste into landfills and water bodies that remain our focus. Along with ecological conservation, we also focus on the growth of the underprivileged communities that are hit the hardest here. We expect to award them the dual benefit rising out of increased employment opportunities and decreased health hazards. In our 5 year grant period, we aim to have a deep and intense impact on our pilot district of Ayodhya while we establish an exemplary model for the entire country to replicate with customised modifications.