Impact of Tetra Pak’s interventions on the socio-economic status of the waste picker community: a case study of Delhi
Student name: Ms Drishti Modi
Guide: Dr Chubamenla Jamir
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: Tetra Pak Pvt. Ltd.
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Jaideep Gokhle
Abstract: Delhi, being one of the mega-cities in the country, having a population of more than 10 million and a dearth of unoccupied area is plagued with all the negative symptoms of economic growth (Joshi & Ahmed, 2016). According to CPCB, waste generation in the city has increased from 400 TPD in the year 1999-2000 to 8700 TPD in the year 2015-2016 and these numbers are ever-increasing. The void that is left by the municipalities at the various stages of waste management is filled by the large informal workforce (CPHEEO, 2016). The potential for involvement of the informal sector is already being explored in various cities across the country for this sector is highly efficient and holds great prospect for development. While private entities are still exploring this integration, Tetra Pak has been working ahead of the curve in ensuring collection and recycling of post-consumer cartons by working closely with the waste picker community. Due to the persistent efforts over the last 10 years, it is estimated that more than 30% of used cartons are getting recycled in India with thousands of waste collectors having associated themselves with collecting cartons (Tetra Pak India, 2017). The interventions however, go well beyond the recycling agenda to other aspects of sustainability- social and economic development of the waste picker community as they form the backbone of the recycling value chain. While the organization has been working with the organization for a long time, there has been little or no research conducted to gauge the effectiveness of these interventions. The present work is an attempt in this direction that examines the characteristics of the community before and after the proposed interventions were made, in the year 2016 and 2017, respectively with the aim to alleviate the Socio-economic status (SES) of the community.
Keywords: Informal sector, Tetra Pak, Used Tetra Pak cartons, Interventions, Recycling
