A decade in Waste Management : ProEarth turns 10

This month's newsletter is special to our team. Anil Gokarn started ProEarth on 1st September 2014 with a vision to solve the 'waste' problem at the community level. Our composting projects find themselves at the heart of this solution. We all know that organic and kitchen waste forms over 60% of the waste we generate at home - and our composting solutions address just that.

One of the key approaches we take is to set up a project that sustains for a long period of time. Our first customer - Shaila Enclave society, continues to be our customer till date. Mr. Uday Nulkar, the then chairman of the society believed in us, and in the composting solution. To us, that has been an achievement as an organisation.

Over the last decade we have replicated this solution from 10-flat housing societies to 1500-flat housing societies. The impact of this is today seen at processing over 10,000 kgs of kitchen waste in both Pune Municipal Corporation and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. Even endearing is that many of our projects win Swachh Sarvekshan Awards.

As an organisation in waste, diversifying our competence across waste streams has added to our strength. In 2014, one of our customers reached out to us for solutions in Garden Waste. We listened to them, and made the linkage for garden waste in Pune City with NGO groups that need the mulch matter for sustaining plantation efforts across the tekdis. This robust model has been running for over 8 years.

Mr Sandesh Savant and Mr. Sangekar both trusted us with this task at their society Nachiket Park - and we are grateful to them for the opportunity. The Garden Waste to Soil Afforestation vertical's impact is inspirational for us. Citizens coming together to prevent burning of garden waste because they have a regular routine collection. This coupled with citizen efforts on segregating leaves and branches so that we can sequester carbon right within the city - leaves us smiling as waste management professionals. We are proud to divert 40 MT of such waste for soil development.

As we grew, we also had the opportunity to work on some interesting projects. One of them has been working with Know How Foundation in a village called Savardari in 2017. Here with Forbes Marshall 's support - we enabled a Zero Waste Village. Waste is Wealth - and true wealth from waste is best given back to soil. We saw many rewards like this pumpkin grow from the composting site.

The project at Savardari, gave us the confidence and boost to work in the space of recycling - and we deepened our understanding in the space of materials recovery. Not long after that in 2021, we set up our own facility which is now a separate vertical in ProEarth.

In the last two years, we have also supported making events go green. From weddings to cricket matches - we stepped with our merit in waste management. We have done all this with the support extended by our partners. Mahalaxmi e-Recyclers Pvt Ltd (eRecyclebin) , reCharkha - The EcoSocial Tribe , Opel Pro Scro Gemcorp Recycling & Technologies , Goonj , Greenmyna Sustainable consultants - all became our partners in making sure nothing went to waste.

The team at ProEarth has been critical in enabling this with operations. In a sector that is unfortunately preceded by non-guarantees, we have been lucky in finding hard working folks.

At our ten year mark, we awarded Long-Service Awards to Ramesh Madar and Sambhaji Doiwad. We applaud their dedication and efforts in supporting the organisation in the last decade.

Through our journey, while looking for sustainable ways to manage waste, We realised that working with the city's real estate developers on feasible, affordable and long term solutions. We thank for the various opportunities that came our way thanks to Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd. , Pride Purple Group VILAS JAVDEKAR DEVELOPERS Naiknavare Developers Pvt. Ltd. and Godrej Properties . The work with each of them continues to give us insights, and strengthens our conviction of making Pune City Zero Waste.

On our tenth year, we entered into making one more critical linkage, and this time on another waste stream. As a pilot with Godrej Properties Limited , we diverted over 70 MT of Construction and Demolition Waste - and have learnings on that as well.

We take the moment to thank our mentors who have supported us in so many ways. Manjushree Tadvalkar and the entire INORA - Institute of Natural Organic Agriculture team for the technical expertise in composting and waste management. Priyadarshini Karve for the opportunties and outreach programs that we have benefittted from. And many others, who kept the faith in us. We were also lucky that Poonam Bir Kasturi and our paths met, at a crucial time where we shared stories, vision and passion on waste.

All of this put together has been the basis of supporting a Zero Waste vision. Our offering to the city has now diversified from composting to a Integrated Waste Management Services. As a social enterprise now backed with this strength - we look to the next decade with renewed hope and fervor.

In service for a Zero Waste World,

Team ProEarth.