For over seven years, I have lived in a gated community in Thalambur, located behind Old Mahabalipuram Road, Chennai’s IT Corridor. This rapidly developing suburban area enjoys proximity to some of the city’s best infrastructure, including high-rise buildings and world-class offices. However, like many other suburban neighbourhoods in the city, the local administration lacks an efficient solid waste management system.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed that mixed waste collected from communities was indiscriminately dumped near water bodies or on vacant land. This practice contributes to land, groundwater, and air pollution while releasing harmful greenhouse gases like methane, which contribute to climate change. Thalambur, being a low-lying area, is particularly vulnerable to flooding during the monsoon season. The accumulated garbage clogs drains, reduces the water catchment capacity of natural bodies, and obstructs the flow of stormwater.
This was when we, a small group of like-minded individuals, decided to manage waste through proven practical methods, instead of dumping it to damage the natural ecosystems.
Read more: What stench? Chennai composting centre turns trash into treasure, minus the smell
Launch of SIMPLE
On World Environment Day, June 5, 2020, we announced the launch of ‘SIMPLE’, an acronym for Sustainability Improvement through Multiple Projects for a Lovelier Environment. We initially started this sustainability initiative for our community, and later extended it to serve other communities as well. It is a non-profit, voluntary initiative entirely run by the citizens. Currently, about 10–15 RWAs are part of the SIMPLE network.
SIMPLE aims to minimise community waste by educating residents and guiding them through the process of segregation of household waste. This includes collecting recyclables for responsible recycling and composting organic waste at home. Additionally, waste reduction is promoted by encouraging residents to adopt the 5Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, and Recycle.
Push for source segregation and composting
The community has made concerted and consistent efforts to achieve success. We have formed social media groups to provide relevant information to residents and educate them on source segregation.
Through workshops and demonstrations, SIMPLE has influenced more than 70 residents to use composters from Daily Dump or Namma Ooru Foundation to compost organic waste and convert the kitchen waste to manure for their gardens. Door-to-door demos are also conducted to educate all the family members on composting.
These measures are ongoing and voluntary, and new homes are encouraged to take up zero-waste practices continuously. Neighbourhood cleanups, awareness campaigns and FM Radio interviews have also helped popularise the cause.
Focus on reuse and recycle
The community has tied up with GCC empanelled vendors of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) to pick up the collected recyclables/dry waste once a week.
SIMPLE regularly conducts collection drives for e-waste, along with initiatives to gather old clothes, books, toys, mattresses, and other reusable items, ensuring they do not end up in landfills. The community has formed a social media group, called ‘SIMPLEy Preloved,’ for residents across Thalambur to sell, buy, lend, borrow, donate, or swap pre-owned items. This platform helps extend the usability of these items until the end of their life cycle.
Every year, after Diwali celebrations, the recyclable paper and plastic waste from firecrackers is collected and sent for recycling. This initiative, which began in my community in 2021, has since been expanded to neighbouring communities. In November 2024 alone, 680 kg of recyclable waste was gathered. SIMPLE has a network of communities and apartments across Thalambur and nearby areas, enabling RWAs and changemakers to replicate these efforts. This streamlines logistics for aggregators, making it easier to collect and process recyclables.
Read more: Seeds of change: How a Sarjapura village transformed its waste into nourishment
Challenges and learnings
However, there are a few practical challenges. Many of the RWAs don’t feel obligated to follow the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, which mandates Bulk Waste Generators (BWG), i.e. communities and institutions which generate 100 kgs of waste per day, to manage most of their waste. They express concerns about the lack of support from the local body for disposing of reject waste or composting bulk organic waste on-site. Then, there is a lack of awareness and cooperation from the residents to segregate the household waste, which is a huge deterrent.
Other types of waste in a fast-growing locality, like wood/carpentry waste, building debris, interior scraps, etc., are dumped in vacant lands or on the road. The leaf litter and trimmed branches of trees from large apartments and gated communities are another huge problem left unaddressed.
Through the SIMPLE network of communities, we have been raising these problems with the District authorities and in RWA meetings.
Waste management boils down to behavioural changes of the residents. It’s important to understand the dynamics of a community before launching SWM practices and tweaking the processes to meet the challenges predicted. Also, all stakeholders, like housekeeping staff, other service staff, and all family members, both young and old, have to be educated to ensure better compliance.
50 metric tonnes of waste diverted from landfills
With continued efforts, the RWAs involved in this initiative have diverted 50 metric tonnes of organic waste and dry waste from dump yards. This has been achieved by continuously promoting home composting, responsible recycling and various 5R drives. Today, SIMPLE offers advocacy, knowledge and communication support to homes and communities across Chennai to go zero-waste. We help organise zero-waste events and guide educational institutions to adopt sustainable waste management. In June 2023, SIMPLE won first place in the ADDA Rise High Awards 2023 in the ‘Towards Zero Waste’ category in an event organised for communities.
As SIMPLE completes five years in June 2025, I am glad that a small and ‘simple’ initiative is striving to create a notable change in the waste scenario and also helping several people to live a low-to-no waste lifestyle, in harmony with nature. I hope this becomes a larger movement and makes sustainability a way of life for the people of Chennai.
The SIMPLE team can be reached on email: simple.elan@gmail.com
only educated people living in a gated comunity can do this. not people living in Chennai City, where comunity people living with out knowledge of solid waste, recycle waste, food waste etc. it’s not possible.
A very encouraging story.
How is the medical waste from individual homes /apartments collected?
In India, we should think of medical waste seriously so that it doesn’t spread diseases.
Encouraging one.must be followed by all.