Foot soldiers of Kerala’s silent revolution against waste

Haritha Karma Sena in Kerala empowers women to manage waste, earn income, and promote civic sense.

The rustling of plastic and paper, the thud of cardboard boxes, and the sounds of a friendly conversation emanate from the shed located on a plot of land near Chala Market in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala’s capital. Inside, two groups of women, 18 in all, dressed in green overcoats, sit in large circles, with the open space in the middle filled with mounds of non-biodegradable waste. Behind them are sacks of unsegregated waste stacked to almost the roof of the shed.

“We will finish sorting all of that in three or four days,” says T. Vasantha Kumari confidently, as her hands unceasingly, and by habit, segregate the different kinds of plastic and paper waste. A Class 10 dropout, the 50-year-old now earns around ₹25,000 monthly from her work.

She is part of Kerala’s Haritha Karma Sena (HKS), involved in door-to-door collection of non-biodegradable waste, which is segregated and handed over to different agencies for various types of recycling. The 35,500 members of the Sena, comprising mainly women, have now become the foot soldiers of the State’s wide-ranging efforts to manage waste and to develop better civic sense among people. The HKS, each unit of which is registered as a micro enterprise with the support of the Kudumbashree Mission, is now carrying out door-to-door collection of non-biodegradable waste in over 70% houses Statewide. 

The need for this force came to the fore following the massive fire at the 110-acre Brahmapuram dumping yard in Kochi in March 2023 that caused the State Pollution Control Board to impose a fine of ₹1.8 crore on the municipal corporation. As per the Kerala State Solid Waste Management Policy 2018, 3.7 million tonnes of waste is generated in the State annually, out of which 77% is biodegradable waste, 18% is non-biodegradable and 5% is mixed waste. 

The HKS has been in existence since 2018, but it was following the fire that the State government launched the ‘Malinya Muktham Navakeralam’ (Waste-free New Kerala) campaign with the Sena having a bigger role to play in it. The Local Self-Government department also issued an order making user-fee payment mandatory for waste collection from shops and households, except for those belonging to the extremely poor categories. Suddenly, the Haritha Karma Sena had an incentive to increase coverage of households and shops. However, on the ground, pulling it off has not been an easy task, and there is still a long way to go.

“We started this HKS unit two years ago. In the initial months, it was hard. We used to get unwashed plastic packets from some households, especially those used for food delivery and milk pouches. It was quite a task to clean those, ignoring the severe stench. We would then dry and segregate them. When we request people to give us clean and dry plastic waste, some would tell us that since they were paying ₹100 every month, it was our job to clean it too,” says R.S. Beena, who heads the HKS unit near the Chala Market that has achieved 99% coverage of households and shops in the area.

Then, the team began to clean the waste in front of those who refused to do so, “to show the kind of effort we have to take”. Now, almost everyone has started giving them clean waste.