BENGALURU: Two years ago in 2016, when Nivedha RM was studying at R V College of Engineering, she and her friends avoided a particular lane beside her college because it was filled with garbage and the stench was unbearable. Upon visiting that lane to investigate, she found out that the houses were full of rodents and flies, and the people in the houses were living in unhygienic conditions. That is when she decided to do something about it, and TrashCon Waste Management was born.
Trashcon Waste Management was founded in 2016 by Nivedha and Saurabh Jain. It enables decentralised municipal waste segregation using a semi-automatic municipal solid waste segregator. The segregator separates any kind of mixed waste into biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste components. It is a plug and play system which makes it easy to transport from one place to another. It is fully modular, so it is easy to repair. The output efficiency of the segregator is above 99.7 per cent, and works in all weather conditions.
Nivedha says, “Bengaluru generates massive amounts of waste every day. All the players involved in tackling this problem want the issue to be solved right from the household, which involves changing the mind set of many people. The change in mindset to segregate waste at the household will be time consuming. I tried to approach the problem from a different angle - why not create a system where a machine can segregate the waste completely? The biodegradable part can go to a composting plant, whereas the non-biodegradable part can be used in roads, roofing, and packaging boxes. In this way, the waste is completely recycled.”
So how does the segregator work? The bag in which the waste is dumped in is opened by the machine. It goes up to a conveyor, and then, it is taken up to a shredder where everything is shredded. Then it is put near a blower where the non- biodegradable waste, being lighter, falls farther away from the blower, and the biodegradable part falls close to the blower. This segregator can segregate five tonnes of waste per day and work for 10 rounds per day.
TrashCon has received ample funding since it started. It received a grant of Rs 10 lakh initially, funding of 15 lakh from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and recently, received funding of Rs 15 lakh from Shell at the Shell Energy Entrepreneurship 2018. The journey has been great, says Nivedha.
“We barely had to do any kind of marketing because this is a major problem that needs to be addressed. A month ago, we were given a 2,000 sq feet plot at Srinagar near Basawanagudi, where we have started our work. We get about 100 calls every day enquiring about the product. Many of these calls are from housing apartments who want to handle their waste sustainably. We will become profitable in the course of the next six months, and I want this product to be installed at every BBMP ward, so that the waste is segregated at the source itself, and not taken to landfills as it happens now. That is a waste of money and isn’t sustainable.”