Blog
Team Social Xleration, 8th July 2022
Introduction
The current waste scenario in India is a major concern for the country. This is especially true for urban areas, where a sizeable number of people lead a high consumption lifestyle leading to a large amount of waste generation. It is reported that urban India currently produces 62 million tonnes of waste (MSW) each year, and it is anticipated that this number will increase to 165 million tonnes by the year 2030. Annually, 43 million tonnes of municipal solid waste are collected, but only 11.9 million tonnes are processed before being buried in landfills.
In this scenario, there is an urgent and inescapable need to recycle the waste generated in the country. Waste management lessens waste’s negative effects on the environment, human health, and so on. Recycling or reusing materials like paper, plastic cans, glass, and others can go a long way in managing wastes. A few start-ups in the country have acknowledged the problem and taken it upon themselves to address the issue by way of their operations. This blog narrates the few initiatives helmed by concerned, committed, and qualified citizens that have come into the recycling sphere.
Phool
When it comes to recycling, the work of Kanpur-based organization “Phool” immediately catches one’s eyes. Founded in the year 2017 by Ankit Agarwal, the company works on addressing the problem of floral waste in religious sites in Uttar Pradesh. The company claims to collect floral waste from temples and mosques in Uttar Pradesh, thus protecting the Rives Ganges from 7600 kg of waste flowers and 97 kg of hazardous chemicals each day. It has developed self-help groups of women who turn the waste into patented products such as incense sticks, soap, and vegan leather goods by a process it refers to as ‘Flowercycling’. These women used to work as manual scavengers. In the upcoming years, the company intends to grow this movement by being present throughout India.
APChemi
Navi Mumbai-based APChemi founded by Suhas Dixit is firmly focused on dealing with the scourge of plastic waste. The firm has complete competence in converting post-consumer plastic waste and biomass into high-quality liquids or fuels. Right from the separation of plastics, followed by washing, drying, pyrolysis, and oil purification, APChemi continues to engineer projects, develop machines, install, commission, and run industrial facilities for this purpose. The firm claims to have 132 years of combined pyrolysis experience since 2007. With over 1.3 million hours of plant operation, the company’s plants have processed 179 million kg of plastic waste. The oil produced is used for downstream production of circular economy plastics, retail-blended-biofuels, and sustainable chemicals.
Ziptrax Cleantech
Located in Delhi, Ziptrax Cleantech founded by Rohan Singh Bais and Sonia Singh works on an interesting aspect of waste management. The company with its Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technology and Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled hardware increases the life of lithium-ion batteries by up to 40 percent. For applications like Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), Ziptrax’s Cradle-to-Grave approach to Li-ion batteries dramatically lowers the battery prices, which benefits not only manufacturers and distributors but also end-users and customers. This is a crucial initiative given the fact that lead-acid batteries are extremely hazardous and harm all life forms as well as the environment due to the presence of lead. Today, Li-ion batteries, imported into the country, are only used once before being thrown away. Consequently, they wind up in a landfill, where they contaminate the land, the air, and the water. Lack of recycling and reuse causes enormous resource loss as a result of this wastage.
Sustainable Livelihood Initiative India (SLII) Pvt. Ltd.
The Surat-based SLII, which was established by Abhimanyu and Vardan Dinesh Rathi, produces water purifiers branded as ‘Vardan Water Purifiers’ that don’t waste water, use no external energy, no pumps, and work with all sources of water while releasing no carbon emissions. Although reverse osmosis (RO) is the preferred method of water filtration in India, it is expensive and wastes at least 3 liters of water for every liter that is cleaned. On the other hand, boiling water consumes fuel and has a significant environmental impact. SLII tackles these problems by using technology to improve the traditional bio-sand filters and make them more dependable and user-friendly. The shelf life of the Vardan Water Purifier is 10 years when utilized at a rate of 40 liters per day. A low-cost method of making graphene, which is utilized to remove physical impurities, and the conversion of electronic waste into solar cells, which provides UV-C Germicidal light inside the system, are two essential technologies that work together.
Shayna EcoUnified
Shayna EcoUnified, a company based in Greater Noida and founded by Paras Saluja and Nitin Srivastava, was established with the goal of reducing the amount of plastic waste dumped into the environment by recycling it to produce economical materials and structural goods. The organization recycles and creates high-performance materials from waste plastic in the form of tiles, furniture, panels, modules, and units. Collaboration with The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-National Physical Laboratory (NPL), with which this technology was created, tested, and approved for use in a variety of applications, allowed for this to become a reality. The output is durable, heat and weather resistant, chip-resistant, acid-proof, corrosion-free, anti-static, anti-microbial, waterproof, and most importantly, recyclable. In comparison to conventional materials, the products also provide higher structural stability, a longer shelf life, and are environmentally friendly.