Circular Economy based River Restoration

Everyday 100 tonnes of plastic waste enters in Mithi river of Mumbai and ends up in Arabian sea, eventually polluting the oceans of the world. The 18km stretch of the river has become the waste dumping space of Mumbai city.

About 150,000 slum families live along the catchment area of the river and 500 informal industries dump their waste in the river. Lack of awareness about proper waste management is chocking the river with plastic.

Using a clean technology infrastructure for marine debris capture, the waste is collected and segregated on-site, it is then either recycled and sent for pyrolisis depending on type of plastic.

Awareness campaigns for local communities helps further reducing the waste dumping into the river.
This circular flow model helps restore the river and generates revenue from the waste. This technology and economic model can be adapted to most major polluted rivers around the world.

Mithi river flows through thickly populated areas of Mumbai. Its journey passes through Asia's largest slum Dharavi with a population of around 1million.

It receives around 90-100 tonnes of waste from its point sources. Thus, the river carries a storm drain and massive amount of plastic waste from its catchment area.

This is due to a lack of awareness and improper waste management by the slums nearby. Excessive waste has resulted in eutrophication and the growth of water hyacinth on the surface.

Earth5R has partnered with United Nations Technology Innovation Labs(UNTIL), RiverRecycle, and Mumbai municipality to create a community-driven circular economy solution to clean the river.

Citizens and businesses in the catchment area of the river are trained to segregate for selling/ upcycling the waste putting a commercial value to every piece of plastic using the 5R model of Earth5R- Respect, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Restore.

Since the beginning of the project in October 2020, Earth5R has already trained 10,000 families and 500 businesses into the circular economy. Citizens also learn the technique of processing organic waste to make compost, which they are using to grow herbs and medicinal plants.

They are also paid for giving away the plastic which is then recycled. With the help of RiverRecycle Earth5R has also installed state of the art solar operated plastic recovery machine at the river which recovers 7 tonnes of plastic from the river every day.

This plastic is segregated at the sorting station unit installed in the riverfront, it is then washed, dried, shredded, and sent for recycling. Low-value plastic is sent for pyrolysis using EU-approved pyrolysis technology. The oil produced during this process is used for industrial purposes.

Our target is to generate a circular economy model. Over 65% of Mumbai’s citizens live in slums, with poor access to basic necessities like electricity, water as well as livelihood. Most of these people have migrated from villages as agriculture has declined partly because of the lack of water and depletion of soils.
These marginalized communities can be involved in livelihood-generation activities based on an important sustainable principle: Circular Economy. The waste that is generated by businesses and buildings has lots of potentials and is being converted into high-quality products like paper bags, paper maché, clothes bags, lamps, interior products, or handicraft items.

Addressing the problem:

1. Cleaning & restoration: The river plastic recovery unit recovers 7-10 tonnes of plastic waste per day is segregated, washed, dried, shredded, and transported to the community based recycling and pyrolysis partners of Earth5R.
2. Preventing: Earth5R is working on developing data-driven model for waste management using modern technologies like AI and Data Technologies. Establishing a waste flow monitoring system using Motorboat and Drone surveillance.
3. Reduction of waste through community engagement: To
   check the flow of waste  our volunteers conduct community training programs that train local communities on waste management.

The 5R model which addresses the entire life cycle from awareness to action has been already tested and rolled out. It is working well in Mithi river Mumbai. Now we are ready to replicate the 5R model in other river-based communities around the world.

This particular solution is innovative because the entire project is circular economy-driven. It is sustainable in terms of energy and the technology is driven by solar power. There is a state-of-the-art plastic recovery unit that takes plastic waste from the river to the land and sorts it into different types of plastic it is then clean, dried and shredded and then sent for recycling. There are different types of recycling programs; the high-value plastic is recycled into another type of plastic and is recycled using the community-driven recycling program. Another type of plastic is broken down into oil using are European Union approved pyrolysis technique and the oil is used for industrial purposes. The project is sustainable and leads to a reduction of carbon footprint.

10 persons are full-time staff, 6 work part time and 10 contractors.. the number of staff members required will be same through.

Different indicators to measure the impact are: to measure the impact are:

1. We are tracking the total amount of plastic that is taken from the river and making sure that the maximum amount of plastic is collected. 2.Different types of adjustments which are required in the machines are made so we are utilizing most of it.

 3. To understand the flow of waste we are conducting routine monitoring. Drones are used to understand by snapping and identifying the hotspot and then by Drone mapping and analysis of the data. It is done so that the flow of the waves in the open ecosystem is reduced.

 4. volume of waste that is ending up in the recovery unit and going into the river is also measured, we are making sure that overall waste going in the river is reduced.

 5. Time to time environmental auditing by the third party.

There are 10 full-time staff, 6 part-time and 10 project coordinators

Earth5R is a leader in the environmental space in India and has one of the largest environmental citizen-driven movements in the country. With great partnerships like United Nations Technology Innovation Labs(UNTIL), UNESCO, Government of France, MMRDA (Mumbai municipality) the project has been showcased in the Paris Peace Forum as one of the best projects. UN SDGs Action award winner Saurabh Gupta is Earth5R's founder and an eminent environmentalist. Other team members include Bharti Marathe( environmental architect) Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ouided Bouchamaoui. The team is very well experienced and has a solid background with partners like RiverRecycle which is a Finland based company and other leading environmental Research Organisations

There is definitely diversity in terms of core team members. 50% of the team members are women. there are team members from different parts of the country and the world. they are from the different cultural backgrounds.

MIT Faculty to help us with technology integration and support with various types of research activites.