When Vipul Singh visited Delhi’s Bhalswa landfill for the first time, he could not believe his eyes. The sting in the air, the sourness settling in his throat, and the sheer scale of the place hit him all at once. At the edge of the landfill, mountains of legacy waste rose like unnatural hills made of soil-like residue, plastics, and construction debris. Dark pools of contaminated water collected below, hawks and eagles circled overhead, and a dull haze hung low. For Singh, it was a sight of unmistakable horror, a stark glimpse of the city’s long battle with its own waste. “It is a strange sight. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to do something about it,” says the 31-year-old social entrepreneur.
Wanting to intervene rather than look away, Singh reached out to architect Gurnaagh Talwar in 2023. Together, they began experimenting with blending the soil-like residue with construction and demolition waste to turn it into durable, sustainable bricks and paver blocks. Over the years, they have upcycled more than 100 tons of waste and produced over 50,000 eco-friendly bricks, pushing for a circular economic model in a place defined by excess and decay. The duo trained six community members to make the bricks: waste is segregated on-site, cleaned to extract recycled aggregates and sand, mixed with cement, molded, vibrated to remove air bubbles, then demolded and water-cured for durability.
Bhalswa landfill is more than an eyesore; it is a symbol of the city’s institutional failure and a decades-long struggle with legacy waste. What began as a modest municipal dump in the mid-1990s on Delhi’s north-west fringe of Jahangirpuri has since become a political talking point, marked by recurring deadlines for clearance and repeatedly stalled work. For the communities living in its shadow, it has become an ever-present threat to their health and survival. “The people who live nearby come from working-class communities and live in extremely dangerous conditions,” says Singh. “We often talk about planting more trees or reducing waste, but little do we do about the waste that already exists, and how it impacts the people living near it.”
Even as funding remains a major challenge, Singh is determined to make the model self-sustaining, with local communities building a livelihood out of it. “My idea is not to earn from this model, but to create examples of sustainable models. We plan to train more and give them the entrepreneurial caliber to create this as a business,” he says. Making traditional red clay bricks, which are kiln-fired, is banned in Delhi, and most are transported from Haryana or Uttar Pradesh. “This will also create a local production in the city,” he adds.
Singh started his journey by travelling across the country performing solo street plays on water scarcity, education, menstrual hygiene, and climate change. In 2019, he was featured in the India Book of Records for performing the highest number of solo street plays. However, he realised that creating awareness through plays was not enough, and thus found Tapas Foundation, a not-for-profit committed to social reform.
The bricks, he says, are as durable and trusted as the traditional ones. “We are getting contracts from NGOs, pharma companies, and individuals,” Singh says. “Our idea is to create an example of a sustainable model. In the future, I am sure that these bricks will become more common, and our efforts will pay off,” Singh remarks.