With rapid urbanization and increasing consumption, the waste volumes have increased tremendously, thus challenging the urban infrastructure to cope up with providing services and managing increased waste volumes.
With developments and innovations in technology, new products have surfaced in the market. The production of plastics has multiplied exponentially over the last few decades, driving our growing need and use of fossil fuels and creating an environmental hazard of plastic pollution. The carbon footprint of plastic is high and is directly related to the climate change crisis that we face globally. Thus, waste-pickers and their work of sorting materials out of waste helps us fight this global problem.

For decades, waste pickers have roamed around scavenging through garbage to eke out a living. Due to informal nature of their work, their right to waste is contested by the local bodies or new rules developed under national policy frameworks.

Aasra Welfare Association becomes a platform that unites all waste pickers (safai sathis) to get access to various policies and schemes for their collective welfare and better livelihoods. Aasra Welfare Association provides innovative solutions that are financially viable as well as scalable.
When informal waste-pickers pull out material and sell for reuse/recycling/down cycling, this results in a direct decrease in the need to use virgin materials for production. Thus, helping create a circular economy and save the environment from the ill-effects of waste.