Ashaya's Resource & Research Cradles

In India, there are about 1.5 million waste pickers who live multidimensionally poor lives. 

Simultaneously, there is untapped value in waste. 81% of waste in India is untreated (~50 million tons), and half of all waste generated is dumped in landfills.

Our goal at Ashaya is to increase the value of waste through scientific innovations and then fairly redistribute that value to stakeholders in the supply chain, especially those who are the poorest: waste-pickers.

Our main goal aims at decentralised recycling centres at the sub-district level across India that upcycle all types of solid waste, incorporate the informal sector, and are financially sustainable, mini-manufacturing units. The local nature of our solution is what makes it scalable globally.

To corroborate this, we believe that almost all types of waste can be converted into 3D-printing material. While 3D-printing has its own set of challenges, what excites us is its nimbleness.

The problem we are trying to address is multi-layered.

Waste informally employs some of India’s poorest people: waste-pickers. There are about 1.5 million waste pickers who live multidimensionally poor lives. They are informally employed – no contract, no protective gear, no health insurance, while earning only daily wages based on the type of waste they encounter. 

Simultaneously, there is untapped value in waste. 81% of waste in India is untreated (~50 million tons), and half of all waste generated is dumped in landfills. Estimates say that waste has the potential to be a multi-billion dollar industry in India by 2025. We believe that’s conservative; there’s even more value to be unleashed.

More specifically, multi-layered packaging (MLP) is considered "impossible" to recycle and suffers from being low-value and high-volume. ~60%-70% of all plastic in India gets recycled, primarily because of the informal economy. The type of plastic that does NOT get recycled much is MLP. A 2020 plastic audit in Pune, India by SWaCH and Break Free From Plastic found that 44% of all plastic waste was MLP. 

All of these problems are interconnected, and we are trying to solve them through decentralized, financially sustainable enterprise.

As mentioned earlier, our goal for building local, resilient urban ecosystems envisions decentralised “Resource Cradles” or recycling centres at the sub-district level across India that:

1. Upcycle all types of municipal solid waste
2. Incorporate the informal sector
3. Are financially sustainable, locally adapted, mini-manufacturing units. 

These would be supported by centralised “Research Cradles” that would essentially be R&D labs focused on increasing the value of all types of waste. We are currently building our first "Research Cradle" (R&D lab) here in Pune, India. 

However, we are at the very beginning of our journey. Our hypothesis is that instead of prematurely displacing the informal sector, we need to first increase the value of waste through the right innovations.

So, for starters, we chose a specific problem area that not many folks want to tackle because it is especially hard - multi-layered packaging (MLP) waste. We are using deep tech (chemical and mechanical engineering) to upcycle MLP into high-quality 3D-printing filament.

We've already gotten early breakthroughs around this - we've managed to separate MLP into its constituent plastic layers (while getting rid of the aluminium). Once we crack MLP, we'll move on to other types of waste and unfold our more far-reaching goal.

The target population we wish to serve is that of wastepickers. 

As mentioned earlier, they live multi-dimensionally poor lives. They are informally employed – no contract, no protective gear, no health insurance, while earning only daily wages based on the type of waste they encounter. Their life expectancy is 39 years of age (versus 69 for an average Indian) because of the dangerous conditions (fumes, fires, dirt) in which they work, and that to, generally without protective equipment. They are generally of low caste, belong to minority groups, or are migrants. They earn somewhere between $50 - $150 a month and live in urban areas that have a higher cost of living on average. It’s also a generational occupation – once you’re a waste picker, there’s a high probability your child will also become a waste-picker. This is the cycle we want to break.

To understand this better, we are working with SWaCH Pune, a local cooperative owned by wastepickers focused on wastepicker livelihoods. They have already conducted a lot of the research, and we plan to work with them on impacting wastepickers. For instance, in our conversations they have mentioned the importance of innovating around recycling MLP (multi-layered packaging), and we have jumped on that train.

However, to be fully transparent, we are currently primarily focused on tech that increases the value of low-quality waste. We are in no rush to incorporate wastepickers into a half-baked solution. We do not want to make promises we cannot keep. 

We need to get the science right first, which will then put us in a position to leverage the economic value we have created to do good. And then, we want to work directly with wastepickers to come up with permanent, systemic solutions that benefit them over the long run.

In a world where urban consumerism is the norm (and sometimes, even the aspiration), waste is its by-product that contaminates our streets, our rivers and our urban ecosystem in general. In developing countries like India, the problem is even more layered with the plight of wastepickers who live poor lives while indirectly cleaning the cities.

Our solution aims at systematically tackling this complex problem at a local, decentralized level. If all waste was locally converted into a resource, while uplifting local communities, we would truly have resilient, urban ecosystems. That's how we see our solution align with this challenge.

We feel we are somewhere between "Concept" and "Prototype." Our lab has only been in operation for about 6 months. We have gotten some early breakthroughs on separating MLP (multi-layered packaging) into its constituent layers, but we still need to upcycle these separated layers into 3D-printing filament. 

We hope to have our first prototype by the end of the year. And then, we can start commercial pilots and progress on to recycling other types of waste.

As you might have figured, our solution is decentralized, layered and involves a lot of different stakeholders. 

But what we are betting on is that we believe almost all types of waste can be 3D-printable. And this is key to not only to increase the value of waste, but to also enable decentralized financial sustainability. When you bring computer-aided design to the fold, the possible applications of recycled material increase exponentially. Plus, there's only going to be more innovation around 3D-printing, and we want to be a part of that wave, creating infinite loops of materials that can be 3D-printed.

Look, I know we sound naively optimistic. When we talk about this, we do get laughed at and dismissed, especially from people who are familiar with recycling. But, we still believe. And not just blindly. Based on our research, there are chemical and physical pathways to making this possible, and while we have not walked down those pathways, we believe we can. 

And so, our focus is rooted in deep tech - that's what will bend the curve.

Currently, as we are in the R&D phase, we are not very focused on measuring our impact. We are focused on first getting the science right. Once we start commercially, the key metrics we would look at will be:

1) the amount of waste diverted away from landfill into the economy,

2) the # of waste pickers we have permanently lifted out of poverty.

3 Full-time staff

Our team comprises just the three of us - a scientist, an engineer and a business executive. We are all committed to Ashaya on a full-time basis.

Jitendra Samdani has completed his PhD in Energy Science and Engineering from DGIST in Daegu, South Korea. He also has a Masters in Physical Chemistry and has contributed to 11 peer-reviewed publications in electro-chemistry and materials science. He has worked on waste-water treatment methods at the Tata Research Development & Design Center (TRDDC) in Pune, India and on battery recycling initiatives.

At Ashaya, Jitendra leads research and development focused on waste-to-value solutions.

I, Anish Malpani, bring over 8 years of global experience in finance, strategy, operations, impact and data. I studied Finance and worked in Corporate America for five years with a multi-billion-dollar media company, only to realise that making money cannot be my sole purpose. So, I quit my fancy job in New York to learn how to make a more positive impact in this world. I spent two years in Guatemala and Kenya working with local social entrepreneurs, before returning to India to start Ashaya. I currently also have the fortune to serve on the boards of three non-profits across three continents.

At Ashaya, I drive operations, finance and strategy, while supporting Jitendra in research and development.

Our newest hire is Nainika Singh Rathore. Nainika has her Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from the Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology along with work experience at Samsung and Reliance.

We are working on some real hard tech, tech that's at the cross-section of physical, chemical and virtual elements.

The reason we have applied is because we want to leverage the brainpower of the network MIT has created through this and everything else they do.

Specifically:

• Computation Chemistry Support: A challenge we face is that we have not cracked computational chemistry yet. Computational chemistry is basically using computer modelling to simulate how materials react and behave chemically and physically. The benefit of this is that it's much cheaper and faster to simulate material development virtually. This would give us a much better idea of which methods and recipes to use in actual experimentation.
• Polymer Science Support: For starters, we are looking to recycle post-consumer plastic waste. This involves cleaning, segregating, separating (chemically), compounding and extruding different types of polymers as cost effectively and climate consciously as possible. We would love more support and ideas around this.

We would love to partner with the Polymer Science department at MIT, specifically the faculty of the Program in Polymers and Soft Matter (PPSM).

Their expertise and years of experience will help us expedite our research process around complex chemical recycling of plastics.