“The income of selected waste pickers is expected to triple, enabling them to send their children to school instead of helping their parents collect waste to supplement the family income. ”

In this project, Waste Capital Partners will incubate four small-scale waste management companies through their Indian affiliate, Waste Ventures India. These companies will be owned and operated by waste pickers, who will be provided with an operational blueprint, enabling them to multiply their profit margins by five. They will do this by charging a fee for door-to-door waste collection, chipping and selling recyclables, producing compost to upgrade poor soil, and eventually creating biomass briquettes from garden waste, all while earning carbon credits.

The new companies will provide services to four progressive municipal governments interested in integrated solid waste management conducted by waste pickers. One of these four cities has already been identified: the municipality of Mhow in the Indore District of Madhya Pradesh. For every city, about 100 waste pickers will be employed and provided with protective gear to prevent respiratory inflammation and injury due to the conditions of working with waste in developing cities. The income of these waste pickers is expected to triple, enabling them to send their children to school instead of helping their parents collect waste to supplement the family income.

Waste Capital Partners will receive a 4-6% revenue share after the companies’ first year of operation and will reach profitability in year 4 based on its current schedule of activities. In addition, Waste Capital Partners is in the process of attaining a Programme of Activity Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) registration that will allow it to register, validate and sell carbon offsets from the waste management companies for a percentage share of revenue. In Net Present Value Terms, (assuming a discount rate equivalent of 7%), Waste Capital Partners breaks even in Year 5.