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ITC sees wealth in waste

After mainstreaming unorganised businesses such as matchbox, incense sticks and confectionery, tobacco, lifestyle and FMCG major ITC is looking to organise yet another — rag picking. It’s working on a programme to collect recyclable waste and use it for supplying raw material to its paperboards and specialty papers division (PSPD). Jogarao Bhamidipati, the vice-president (commercial) of PSPD, said that waste management is turning out to be a big business for the company. “Though it’s currently being used for our captive needs, it has the potential to emerge as a business on its own,” he said. Bhamidipati heads the waste management programme with a team of 20 ITC executives across India. The programme, which started as a corporate social responsibility initiative, entails buying domestic waste from homes, separating waste paper and sending it to ITC’s paper mills for recycling. Called ‘Wealth out of Waste’ (WOW), the programme has been tried at Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Coimbatore. Despite logistical challenges, the programme has yielded benefits for ITC. The company is now expanding it to other municipalities in Andhra Pradesh. ITC hopes to network with waste collectors, NGOs and even the youth and retired people to collect waste. In Hyderabad, it has tied up with 6,000 municipal tricycle operators that collect waste from homes. An organised process, however, is yet to be put in place. “In the last 18 months, we have implemented the programme in select locations. We estimate that we are collecting waste from 10-12 lakh homes,” Bhamidipati said.