Kerala, India: Empowering individuals to drive local change

CONTEXT

At the beginning of 2021, Litterati partnered with an Indian NGO Greenworms to do a pilot study of what was being left in the environment in between the formal and informal waste collection systems in the towns of Sreekandapuram and Vadakara, Kerala, India.

 For this, 4 research fellows were recruited and trained to collect Litter & waste data following a standardized methodology in 60 locations across the 2 towns, this data was collected each month so we could build up a comparison over time (6 months)

CHALLENGE

How do you start unraveling the littering problem in a region and understand how or who the stakeholders are to start thinking about change with Litter Data?

LITTERATI SOLUTION

The Research Locations were selected in each Village & Town by applying geospatial data science to assure we had relevant statistical coverage. These locations cover a variety of locations: coastal, in-land, and near rivers. Some locations were also located close by schools and commercial junctures. 

The research phases helped identify the change over time in terms of littering as well as what objects & materials were constantly being found. 

We were able to identify and map out some of the hotspots in the 2 different regions. One that stood out was schools. Schools in these towns play a pivotal role in creating awareness in the form of a domino effect (from students to parents, to society) which led us to conduct an educational pilot with 256 students. 

This form of research exposed the residents to our researchers collecting litter and documenting litter data in their surroundings. That led to understanding the key stakeholders to include while thinking of driving change: 

• Schools

• Local Businesses

• Municipality Council

• Informal Waste Sector

• Formal Waste Sector

CONCLUSION

• Littering reduced by 65% over 6 months, across the 2 locations studied.

• The absolute amount of litter found between phase 1 and 6 reduced by 12% in both locations.

• Our observations are that the following have impacted this:
  
  – Engagement with the Municipality to encourage new initiatives and work with the formal sector, schools and our research fellows in order to learn from the data and implement changes.
  
  – An increase in Awareness with Local Businesses helped realize the value of proper waste disposal and to place informal waste bins in their stores.
  
  – Education Pilot with Schools that led to a change in behavior and an improved societal awareness in the wider community.
  
  – The Formal Sector increased household collection by 10% and collection from commercial shops by 14% in the past 3 months. (Sreekandapuram)
  
  – Interacting with the Informal Sector showcased a need for knowledge around materials and how to deal with or dispose them better.

The final data report was shared with both municipalities and talks are going on for the implementation of better infrastructure in highly-littered areas. All of this was made possible through the dedication and research carried out by the fellows, local ambassadors empowered with data made a significant impact.