HYDERABAD: Large black-covered gunny bags dominate a tin-covered plot in Bandalaguda. A couple of women sitting in a corner pick up cardboard boxes from one of these bags, flatten them, neatly setting them aside in a separate pile. In another corner, a young man has immersed his legs in a pile of waste paper and attempts to crush it down with his feet, while his manager oversees the process, adding instructions here and there.
This is a regular sight at the godown of Goodeebag, a start-up that has recently found its way into the sustainability sector. The founder and CEO, Abhishiek Agarwal, has decided to foray into a field not many have the courage to venture into. “Not many people are interested in the garbage sector. I was able to identify the market gap between the dry waste that is generated in our homes and the recyclers of such waste,” said Agarwal.
Gaining experience from his father’s garment business and then his own acumen in the transportation industry; in February 2022, Abhishiek entered the realm of waste management by establishing Ecovani Waste Management Pvt Ltd and introducing the Goodeebag brand.
He told CE that there was a significant need to educate households about the segregation of wet and dry waste, help them identify the amount of waste they generate and aim to reduce it gradually. “For this, we created a simple phone application that shows people the amount of waste they generate in a week or a month. They then get points on segregation of different items and after earning a significant number of points, they can get them exchanged with common household items like groceries, etc—all without any cost,” explained Abhishiek.
Akshita Agarwal, one of the customers of Goodeebag from Begumpet, has been using the application and services of the company for the past year. She explained how Goodeebag makes waste segregation easy: All I have to do is keep two dustbins— one for plastic and paper and the other for kitchen waste. Goodeebag has provided me with a gunny bag, where I put the collected dry waste. They come once a week and pick it up. In exchange, they give us points which can be redeemed for a lot of things or you could just keep them stagnant. It’s a door-to-door pick-up service.
A family of four, with two kids, Akshita says that about four to five kilograms of dry waste is generated in a week. “This app has helped me reduce my guilt of not mixing my household plastic waste with the kitchen waste and also doing my bit for saving the environment. This way, we can also teach our kids about waste segregation and its significance,” she said.
The company is connected to about 4,000 families in Hyderabad and aims to reach out to two lakh people by the end of 2024. “We also plan to expand to other metro cities in time to come,” said Abhishiek.
After picking up the waste from homes, Goodeebag’s collectors take it to the godown and segregate it into different categories: single-use plastic, multi-layered plastic, cardboard, paper, plastic bottles, etc. It is then sold to companies that recycle plastic waste. “As of now this is the procedure, but in future, we are planning to transform this waste into tiles. The aim is to stop any plastic from going into landfills,” said Abhishiek.
His team includes 15 people, most of them workers hired from the local basti in Bandalaguda. “We prefer to provide employment to women as they are regular and diligent with their work,” said Jessal Shah, the manager at Goodeebag’s godown. “In my experience, the reason why customers have chosen to stay with the company is that we deal with them on a personal level. We arrange waste pick-ups as per their availability, resolve their issues immediately and most importantly, the ease with which everything is done. They don’t have to worry about where their waste goes after pick-up,” he added.
The company has made a few tie-ups with other private establishments for recycling but engagements with the government are limited so far. “We organise workshops in schools and communities to help people learn about the impact this makes on the environment. Our motto is to give voice to the voiceless. It happens through informed choices and one step at a time,” concluded Abhishiek.