Shikha Patel
Vaishali Gupta
Naveen Gottipalli
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay - Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management
Ashish Pandey
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They provide end-to-end decentralized waste management solutions. They use Biogas Plants (based on the Nisargruna technology developed at BARC) and create a zero waste situation.
They provide end-to-end decentralized waste management solutions for housing societies, corporate houses, townships, school and college campuses, etc. and realizing zero waste model.
The services include:
a. Waste Audit
b. Designing a customized Waste Management System
c. Installing the Waste Management System
d. Operation and Maintenance of the system
e. Enhancing environmental awareness
f. Consultancy related to the above services
They provide solutions for both biodegradable (food waste, horticulture waste) and non-biodegradable waste. They use NISARGRUNA Biogas Technology from BARC and they have the license for it.
Realization of the Zero Waste Model involves four parts – Waste Audit, Design of a Waste Management System tailored to the situation, Installation and Commissioning of Operations.
BARC has developed NISARGRUNA Biogas Technology for the treatment of organic waste. The biogas plant works on the principle of Biomethanation where microorganisms consume organic waste to generate methane gas and organic manure. The biogas can be used for cooking, heating water, generation of electricity (only when it processes above 1000 kg per day). The organic manure can be used for internal horticulture. In case there is no garden space or any manure is left over, it can be channelized to interested individuals / institutions outside the premises.
The founding team consists of three Post Graduates, Ritvik, Jayant and Debartha with Masters in Social Entrepreneurship from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. During their graduation, they were given a project to find a social problem and how they can tackle it. During this project, waste management was something that they found very compelling and untouched field that they wanted to contribute into. They started working with the NGOs who were already working in this field to gain more knowledge of the field. Post that their solution and business idea won several competitions and which motivated them to further take this idea ahead.
They have been working in the waste management sector since 2010 in association with Stree Mukti Sanghatana (SMS).They focus is on the business development and the NGO organizes waste-pickers, trains them and make them employable.
Awards and Achievements
Sampurn Earth team has won accolades at several business plan competitions. The most significant win has been at the Global Social Venture Competition 2014 (www.gsvc.org) organized by the Haas School of Business of the University of California – Berkeley where they emerged as the winners out of about 650 entries from 40 countries. Nationally, they emerged at the top at competitions organized by the various IITs, IIMs and other business schools. They were selected as Top five Mumbai Heroes 2015, an initiative taken by Mumbai Mirror.
Current Waste management process is a non-cyclic process which includes extraction, production, consumption and dumping or landfilling. The whole process results in green-house gas emissions, ground water pollution and an ever-increasing strain on natural resource. Sampurnearth breaks this traditional model of waste management by realizing the importance of zero waste model.
For biodegradable waste it uses Biogas Plants which is based on the Nisargruna technology developed at BARC. This technology works on principle of Bio-methanation where microorganisms consume organic waste to generate methane gas and organic manure. It uses Composting for the non-bio-degradable waste where waste is channelized to certified recycle partners leaving a very small percentage of waste going to the dumping grounds and creating zero-waste situations.
For clients generating large quantities of dry waste, in appreciation of the responsible, environment friendly initiative, customized products like notepads, envelopes made of recycled paper are supplied.
It has three revenue streams: Bio-Gas Installation, Services and Private Market Waste.
Bio-Gas Installation – It has two models for bio-gas plant – traditional brick bio-gas plant and tin-tanks for space-constraint cases such as urban areas. Tin-tanks are the specialty of Sampurnearth which focuses on effective utilisation of land. It charges the product price and its installation price. For plants which are in Mumbai, it provides maintenance services and charges for the same.
Services - It provides operational services for bio-gas plants and compost pits, maintenance contracts, design & Implementation services of City & Town level project and Consultancy services in which it conducts waste audit for duration of 1 to 7 days and after understanding the pattern of waste generation and the existing waste management system, a report is submitted with recommended solutions for both wet waste and dry waste.
Private Market Waste - It collects waste from schools & colleges, hostels etc and in Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) Projects where it has clients such as HUL, Parle Agro, Godrej etc to collect waste from the companies and take full responsibility of waste recycling by partnered with certified recycled players. It makes money by receiving payment at ‘x’ rate from source and sell it to recycling vendor at ‘y’ rate (per Kg). Therefore, (y-x) is the net income of Sampurnearth in this revenue stream.
As per a 2013 estimate by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Indians throw out 15,342 tons of plastic waste every day, of which about 60% is recycled, most of it in the informal sector. The recycling rate in India is considerably higher than the global average of 14%, there are still over 6,100 tons of plastic which are either landfilled or end up polluting streams or groundwater resources. Some kinds of plastic do not decompose at all, others could take up to 450 years. By adopting unique model of waste management, Sampurnearth contributes a lot in solving waste problems of India which would indirectly improve air quality by reducing greenhouse emissions, enhance marine life quality and contribute in controlling earth temperature by reducing global warming. Not only it is impacting environment, it is also working for societal benefit by giving a good life to women rag-pickers by providing them employment for waste managers.
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Ritvik Rao, Co-founder of Sampurnaearth
Sampurn(e)arth is working towards the end to end solutions for waste management, they provide their services for housing societies, corporate houses, townships, school and college campuses, etc.