Background:
India generates close to 26000 Tons of plastic waste daily. Though a large part of it is from cities,
the amount of plastic waste in rural areas is rising exponentially. Unlike the cities where waste is
largely landfilled, plastic waste in rural areas is mostly burnt in the open as there are no recycling
facilities. The Government of Karnataka has set up 4 Material Recovery Facilities in 4 districts to facilitate aggregation and resource recovery of dry waste. However, as the villages don't have good collection systems for segregated waste, the infrastructure is likely to remain unused or will be underutilized. 

Objectives:
This project aims to implement segregated waste collection & composting at the village level; and aggregation of plastic waste at Taluk level RRFs to increase the recycling of plastic waste & reduce pollution caused due to improper waste disposal. The project demonstrates how implementation at scale in a district can lead to improved resource recovery of dry waste and improve the viability of processing of low-grade plastic waste. It also demonstrates how livelihood opportunities can be created through the collection and processing of waste in rural areas. Apart from resource recovery, the objective also is to reduce littering and reclaim water Bodies like drains and village ponds from the menace of dumping of waste.

The focus also is on improving the viability of the system by user fee collection and increasing income from the sale of dry waste through aggregation and efficient sorting. A key focus of this project is on integrating SHGs into the waste management system thereby providing them with dignified livelihoods and demonstrating how