India’s next billionaire will be a garbage collector. They will call him “trash king”. Read on if you are all set to arrest cynicism with insight. So how do you become a multi-millionaire from something as filthy, straightforward and boring as garbage collection?

Upside Potential

Well, here’s how. The market is there. There is huge upside potential to achieve scale economies. And, at the end of the day, it will translate into the potential to earn billions. While garbage seems like a nuisance in India, when someone sees garbage in Europe, they think of euros and dollars. This thought may be of interest to those looking for business ideas in a rapidly growing Indian economy with massive urbanisation that will happen over the next thirty years.

Waste is a desolate side of the economy in India. And garbage hits the headlines only when things go wrong — as in Bangalore recently. However, Europeans believe that garbage dumps are gold mines. And, where there is muck, there is money to be made.

In the waste heaps and streets of nineteenth century London, it was rag-and-bone men who scavenged discarded rags, bone, metal and other waste from the towns and cities where they lived.

These days, people involved in removing waste do not push handcarts but ride chauffeur-driven limos; do not live in garrets amid squalor but lodge in villas. Their ragged, greased overcoat is replaced with custom-tailored Savile Row and their dirty sack slung over the shoulder in old times is now replaced by a fleet of automated side-loader refuse trucks.

Around 3 billion tonnes of waste are generated in the EU each year. That amounts to over 6 tonnes for every European citizen. It is well-planned, painstaking waste management that keeps the environment impact under control.

EU waste management

EU member States have about 5,000 companies encompassing all activities in waste management. These companies employ over a million people who operate around recycling and sorting centres, composting sites, waste-to-energy plants and controlled landfills. They play an important role in the determination of the best environmental option for waste management problems. Their combined annual turnover exceeds €100 billion.

In Europe, creating wealth from waste engages consumers and householders as dynamic participants in the system and points to a new form of citizenship. It would not be an overstatement to add that in Europe, economy and waste management are now coupled together, as in a double helix. One cannot do without the other.

Further, in most of Europe, waste disposal is not a solution to the waste problem. Waste management is seen in the larger context of socio-economic development and resource management.

Europeans believe that effective waste management begins with waste prevention. After all, what is not produced does not have to be disposed of.

Within Europe, it is Germany that leads in recycling, with around 80 per cent of the waste the country generates successfully recovered and reused each year by conscientious Germans. This is no small feat.

Germany is working on becoming a zero-waste country by 2020 and is constantly developing some of the most innovative schemes. It leads the way in the new waste economy in Europe. The German experience can provide invaluable strategic and practical advice.

Recycling, German way

In Germany, meticulous waste management strategy has full cooperation and participation from the government, the industry and the citizens; it starts at the very beginning of the waste creation process — with the waste producers.

There are three simple components every producer considers: waste avoidance, waste recovery and environmentally compatible disposal.

Germany is home to more than 80 million professional trash sorters!

Recycling is a way of life in Germany. It’s an attitude and mindset that makes Germans among the most prolific sorters of trash, and with good reason.

Admittedly, Germany’s recycling rules are complex and vary from town to town. But, ignorance is no excuse. When all else fails, German law steps in. The fines for breaking the recycling laws are hefty.

As a general rule, everything is recycled in Germany. And, if you spend any length of time in Germany, you become passionate about it — especially the bins and bins of rainbow colours waiting to take your garbage.

The German recycling industry is a technologically advanced and profitable enterprise, offering services even to other nations around the world. From disposing the toxic waste of Bhopal to finding a solution to the notorious garbage crisis of Naples — Germany can do it all.

Many of my Indian friends have mixed feelings when they return to India after a short visit to Germany. The first is of respite and relief as garbage in India belongs to the neighbours’ backyard or the streets.

But a stronger feeling is that of wonder and incomprehension at how Germans spend hours and hours recycling garbage into an array of bins. Someone must be very wrong. Or, right?

I am reminded of the Sanskrit verse that asserts that at the end of it all, nothing is a waste: Amantram aksharam na asthi

Naasthi moolam anaushadham.

Ayogyah purusho naasthi

Yojakah thathre durlabhah.

Meaning:

“There is no letter of the alphabet that is not a Mantra,

no root or leaf that has not medicinal properties,

no person who is totally useless.

What is lacking is, of course, the right manager, who could put these to

proper use”.

(The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany. >blfeedback@thehindu.co.in )

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