The genesis of the project is in the city of Kolkata that has the highest gross CO2 emission footprints in India of which city’s municipal solid waste and landfill accounts for nearly 45% of the total emissions. The future of the radically unequal & explosively unstable urban world that makes ‘citizens of dirt’ and waste recycling were concerns of SAFE behind creating this entrepreneurial opportunity called RESOLVE for the urban poor. Resolve Trash2Cash started in the year 2010 with initial support received from Vodafone Essar Limited.
As a civil society organization working towards sustainable environment development & poverty alleviation, SAFE initiated this innovative adaptive economic model of RESOLVE with the slum dwellers, since every slum portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shanty towns ostracized from the formal world economy. Social audits conducted by SAFE showed that the urban slums adjacent to municipal garbage hills increasing landfill emission, spreading pollution & diseases whereas the solid wastes recreate resources for dwellers to survive. This unorganized sector has created opportunity for handful of recyclers to make huge profit by exploiting the underprivileged in the lure of a tiny amount.
SAFE took the lead to organize slum dwellers & undertook awareness development & capacity building exercises to equip them with structured –processing & low cost small scale recycling units.