India is turning-out to be one of the biggest dumping yards for e-Waste. To streamline this, government has implemented various rules based on extended producer responsibility. But the channel of producers, collection centres, consumers/bulk consumers, dismantlers and recyclers have been failing to manage wastes properly. The most essential aspect of successful waste management is the capacity of regulations to amalgamate the large informal industry into the formal e-Waste processing sector. But unfortunately, the amended e-Waste rules in the country completely ignore the informal sector. Millions of collectors (kabadiwala) carry-out door-to-door collection of waste and earn their livelihoods by collecting and selling these wastes to informal recyclers. Need of the hour is a systematic & organized approach with extreme commitment towards the collection of waste, which has been the whole story of Extracarbon that employs kabadiwalas and collects recyclable waste from homes & other commercial places, and sends the materials to respective recyclers. “Collectors are the entrepreneur well known as the kabadiwala or radhiwala and for us, they are green super heroes (GSHs) who can basically pick-up anything,” explains Gaurav Joshi, Co-Founder, Extracarbon.

This Gurgaon-based company manages all verticals of e-Waste: recycling, refurbishing and reusing. The waste collected by the company is checked by its experts (whether the product is reusable or refurbishable) and usable products are refurbished. These are then sold through online marketplaces and a dealers’ network. Extracarbon maintains a different set of people for selling the usable products. Post this, the wastes which are dead or reached to their end of lifecycle are discarded to respective recyclers. The firm operates on the concept & implementation of the ‘online kabadiwala’ idea and guarantees pickups for procuring all kinds of exchanged

electronic goods without any selective picking. Consumers can now schedule pick-up and know the prices of e-Waste through call, online portal or mobile app that is later collected by GSHs under the timeline of not more than 72 hours. The company engages proper logistic facilities, assuring e-Waste reaches perfectly to the respective recyclers without any hazardous impace to the environment.

Extracarbon is focused on waste management at the grassroots level; thus the company not only educated the kabadiwalas but also made them as an integral part of the system

The Detailed Methodology
Extracarbon is focused on waste management at the grassroots level; thus the company not only educated the kabadiwalas but also made them as an integral part of the system. Instead of asking them to leave the industry, the company has upgraded their skills & understanding, enabling them to distinguish between waste and refurbishable products. Presently they are running the process and leverage the company as a way to generate leads. The venture’s payment mechanism, Jhoomley Credit relieves all GSHs from their obligation of remunerating for the waste in cash (borrowed from loan sharks at high interest) to the users, as they are paid in Jhoomley credits. These credits can be redeemed on the company’s website, Paytm, or FreeCharge and further used for online shopping or on other portals. Going extra mile, Extracarbon arranges loans for GSHs from NBFCs at very low interest rates. These services can be availed through the company’s dedicated application, website, Facebook or WhatsApp. Extracarbon not only provides training and assisting financially to GSHs but also enhances their operation areas and tenure of employability in the industry. “Now they can predict their business 12 months in advance, whereas earlier they could only foresee it for 6-7 months and remaining months, they works in farm as temporary labors,” added Gaurav.

Conquering the Success
Gaurav was doing his MBA in London where he saw one of his friends selling the Indian carbon credits to banks and earning in

millions. After returning to India, he desired to start his own e-Waste management firm; but initially, his idea got rejected by his family members & friends, before approaching to Anant (Co-Founder). The company’s challenge has been countering the lack of knowledge about the e-Waste management industry, e-Waste disposal, collection methods and funds. Explaining further, Gaurav says, “There is no talent school supporting to this sector and we had to hire and test the people across sectors. But now we have a very solid team and this year, we are going to hire interns from IIM & IMT, thus this indicates our brand evolution since inception to till date”.

The huge import of e-Waste in India leads to the intolerable risk for human health and the environment. Extracarbon concentrates on collection process and organizes collection drives in housing societies, institutes and many more where the customers can directly sell their e-Waste to their GSHs. Invested heavily on e-Waste collection, company has no compliances or licenses of its own; but its collaboration with the recyclers enable them certify every procurement, the details of which are shared with the client. The firm caters 100+ clients including some big names like E&Y, Philips, DLF, More megastores, and government nodal agencies amongst others.

With a vision to tweak waste collection process, Extracarbon is trying to bring-down the e-Waste collection time to 30 minutes from two hours. In fact, the company provides the pick-up service in less than two hours in some areas of Gurgaon. The firm is looking forward to generate revenue of Rs.10 crores in the coming FY. “We want to built our expertise on the collection part and assist the recyclers. We even crave to stop importing of the waste from other countries,” proclaims Gaurav.

Panel
Key Management:
Gaurav Joshi, Co-Founder
An MBA in marketing with diverse experience of over 14 years in business development, client servicing and marketing, Gaurav incepted Extracarbon in 2013.

Anant Avinash, Co-Founder
Anant played an important role in developing Extracarbon from startup to an established and respected organization.

Offerings: e-Waste Management