Chennai is mega-city of 9 million people in India. It generates 5,000 metric tons of urban waste every single day, but 90% of the waste collected ends up in open dumps where it is incinerated in the open air, adding to air pollution and causing serious public health and safety problems. As in most major cities in South Asia and Africa, garbage collection is one of the main activities found in the informal sector. In Chennai, it is estimated that the informal sector recycles 19,000 metric tons of plastic and generates 4.3 million dollars in revenue each year. Street collectors, therefore, not only contribute to better waste management, but also earning a living along the way, sometimes above the poverty line. However, in developing countries, municipalities, multinational brands, and waste management companies struggle to work effectively with informal stakeholders – despite increasing evidence of the commercial, environmental, and social benefits of forming mutually beneficial partnerships.

Through a unique business process and award winning technology, Kabadiwalla Connect (KWC) seeks to improve the living conditions and incomes of the people working in the shadows and integrate them into existing waste management channels, helping municipalities, brands, and waste management companies recover postconsumer waste efficiently and more inclusively in the developing world. In 2015, thanks to an initial grant from the World Economic Forum, KWC started mapping and identifying all the actors in the informal waste recovery and recycling sector - from street collectors to specialist dealers. Their study proved that it was possible to procure consistent volumes from the informal sector and provide certain benefits (better price, better pick up time, clearer signal on the market dynamic of recycling). Once identified all actors, KWC provided them with a whole logistical framework to guarantee outlets for them. KWC is based on "Kabadiwallas", "waste aggregator-entrepreneur" in Chennai’s dialect. They prepare a raw material destined for wholesalers-dealers who are able to purify these recycled materials and sell them to reprocessors. KWC offers them computer applications that allow them to plan their everyday work and better set the prices of their material. KWC is also helping them improve the quality of the sorted material and work as a network to increase the amount of waste purchased. In other words, KWC offers traceability of material movement in the informal supply chain, traceability of compliance, but is also engaging in collection, and soon moving to processing.

Kabadiwalla Connect uses its technology platform to leverage the already existing informal infrastructure. The KWC platform makes the informal ecosystem more accessible to other players. Municipalities can utilise informal infrastructure to bring down operational costs; waste management firms can source from it; corporations can carry out their extended producer responsibility through it; apartments and small businesses can send their recyclable waste directly to informal stakeholders that are a part of the informal ecosystem. Since Kabadiwalla Connect’s business began in 2014, 500 tons of PET bottles have been collected by the informal economy sector between 2014 and 2017, some 2,000 kabadiwallas in Chennai have joined the KWC paltform, and around 100 have decided to specialize and professionalize. The long-term goal is to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill by 70% across the Indian subcontinent. In other words, 48.16 million metric tons of material recovered.

Kabadiwalla Connect (KWC) uses open data technology to make informal waste collectors part of an inclusive waste management system in India. The software allows informal workers

to professionalise by offering planning tools and quality standards for material sorting, and allows for profitable price adjustment for their material. It creates a network where people can share knowledge and connect with stakeholders, enhancing traceability along the supply chain. Until now, around 2,000 ‘kabadiwallas’—small-scale waste aggregators—have joined KWC, enabling a taxonomy of different types of aggregators and material recovery facilities to be established. Through mapping the informal sector, it becomes easier to connect informal workers and entrepreneurs with cities’ solid waste operations, helping them to obtain more secure incomes and better working conditions while increasing the volumes of waste that can be recycled and put back into use.