Business model to use easily recyclable products from urban households to benefit the underprivileged

Abstract

Despite the rapid ascent of India's economy in recent years, the country's poverty rate declines only at 1%. Rising inflation and lack of commensurate opportunities for unskilled labourers has made the situation worse. This has resulted in a vast majority that cannot afford basic clothing, footwear, blankets, or even hygienic sanitary napkins. While sporadic cloth collections are not uncommon during periods of crisis, there are few organizations that focus on bridging this divide on a more systematic and developmental level. Hence we plan to develop an inclusive business model that will not only provide clothing and other basic amenities, but also provide employment opportunities. The objective of this project is to develop a business model that will enable the reuse of household urban waste to the advantage of underprivileged people. The model aims to be self sustaining after the initial stages. Hence, apart from donations, additional avenues of income generation will be identified. An organisation called Goonj works to achieve a similar goal. However, they concentrate on many more activities apart from this. Goonj will be considered to understand the basic functioning of an NGO that is involved in reuse of household items. The Goonj model will be used as a basis for understanding strengths and weaknesses. The learnings gained through this will then be employed along with secondary and primary research to develop the business model. The NGO will be started on a small scale first to ensure that the model works. The operation will be regularly monitored and evaluated. Any issues or improvements made will be documented. Once the model is deemed to work successfully, expansion plans will be considered. The process of expansion is dealt with in the last section.