This ex-journalist wants to fix India’s garbage problem with a tech startup

Conversion of garbage to compost

Wilma Rodrigues, a German language translator, tour guide, and former journalist, hated it when tourists complained to her about India’s garbage-ridden streets. So she set up an NGO in the late 1990s to create awareness about keeping the environment clean in line with the government’s Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (“clean India program” in Hindi).

Over a decade later, she realized that just educating people wasn’t enough. There was a need for concrete solutions, not just for stopping litterers, but also for processing waste.

By then, there were several companies building high-tech infrastructure to recycle waste in India. But they didn’t solve the problem entirely, because few of them provided services such as waste separation and processing.

Besides, some of them had set up recycling plants several kilometers away from cities. Vehicles carrying recyclables to these plants were so poorly maintained that the garbage kept dropping all along the roadways.

To fix this, Rodrigues partnered with these companies to source for recycling machines which were then placed in waste-generating areas like tech parks, large residential complexes, and schools. This helped to reduce transportation of waste and convert the garbage into resources.

Rodrigues started this as a non-profit in 2013. Soon she decided to make money out of solving the problem by setting up Saahas Waste Management. Today she revealed that Saahas has secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Indian Angel Network. Nagaraj Prakasam along with Upaya Social Ventures also participated in this round.

“Most of Bangalore’s 5,000 tons of daily waste ends in a landfill that affects the livelihood of people around it. Improperly disposed waste also contaminates water bodies. By outsourcing their waste management to Saahas, bulk generators achieve zero waste campus status and a step towards social responsibility and goodwill,” says Prakasam.

Dry waste management for recycling

Saahas is decentralizing waste management processes through which waste is converted to resources, like bio-gas and compost. It focuses on organic waste management along with collection and recycling of packaging materials like plastic, and electronic waste. It sets up recycling centers on behalf of clients, and claims to have 30 centers of 2,500 square feet each where it employs 80 waste pickers.

Saahas detects waste by type and picks the right tech to deal with them. It also trains clients on waste management best practices, like disposing garbage into the correct bins.

Typically, Saahas charges INR 2,500,000 (US$39,000) to put up a biogas plant and INR 1,200,000 (US$18,000) to start a compost plant. It also charges a service fee to operate the centers.

“Convincing large corporates and apartment complexes to pay up for waste management is one of the biggest issues in running the business,” says Rodrigues. “People spend obscene amounts on maintaining swimming pools, apartment complexes, and gardens, but don’t find it important to manage waste instead of disposing it. Besides less landfills, the biggest difference is that there will be fewer greenhouse gas emissions leading to better climate and cleaner environment. That’s also an expense that needs to be considered,” she adds.