India Eyes Trash Cup 2025

The global “trash collection world cup,” SpoGomi, pits teams against each other to collect and sort the most garbage in a set time and area. In the 2023 inaugural Tokyo event, India’s Chennai Super Klean finished sixth out of 21 nations and will compete again in the 2025 World Cup, highlighting India’s rising role in global environmental initiatives.

India generates over 1,50,000 tonnes of municipal waste daily, much of which overwhelms landfills, clogs rivers, and pollutes communities. At the core of the country’s recycling system are thousands of informal waste workers (ragpickers) who collect and sort waste under hazardous, often invisible conditions.

The Trash Collection World Cup, with its focus on individual action and segregation, raises a critical question: Can awareness and behaviour change alone solve a problem of this magnitude, or is it a distraction from the need for massive structural and policy reform?

Awareness & Action

On the surface, the idea of gamifying waste management seems attractive. Chandra Pawa, an environmentalist, says, “Sports and competitions can drive participation and bring community spirit.” However, without robust policy and infrastructure, awareness will not lead to any tangible benefits. Pawa says, “Gamification initiatives... must be thoughtfully implemented to prevent superficial participation and ensure the event achieves its goals and is not just a facade.”

Professor Brajesh Kumar Dubey from IIT Kharag-pur, a leading waste management expert, stresses that India's waste crisis is fundamentally one of systems.

Prof. Dubey argues that the simple act of separating wet and dry waste at the household level is the single biggest challenge, and yet, the key to solving the crisis. “If you do source segregation, then 60-70% of your waste problem, you can solve it,” he asserts. There is a massive disconnect between public intent and municipal reality. Even where citizens attempt to segregate their waste, the system often breaks down. Collection trucks frequently lack the mandated separate compartments for wet and dry waste, or workers lacking proper training simply mix the material.

“Training the workers and making them aware of why segregation should be done needs to be addressed,” says Prof. Dubey. Training should be done for the people at the local level in the local language.

The Infra Gap

Experts say that the foundation for a circular economy rests on “clean feed.” A biomethanation plant or a composting facility cannot produce high-quality, marketable products if the organic waste is contaminated with plastic and metal. When the end product cannot be sold, the entire economic model collapses, and the waste defaults back to the landfill.

To fix this, radical policy interventions are necessary to make waste processing financially viable for municipalities.

“Western European countries started putting some landfill tax,” Professor Dubey notes. The tax revenue generated from dumping waste was then used to subsidise and hand-hold the fledgling processing industry — compost and biomethanation plants — until they became self-sufficient, much like the subsidies given to India’s IT sector in the 1980s.

Pawa points to the existing Solid Waste Management Rules (2016), which already mandate source segregation and decentralised processing. “I think stricter enforcement of existing waste management laws could be a good start,” he says. Municipal corporations and local bodies should have more teeth in terms of penalising lawbreakers and rewarding the good Samaritans.

Work Dignity

Informal waste workers in India, or kabadiwalas, are the unsung backbone of the recycling system, yet they endure unsafe conditions, social stigma, and exploitation. “They face discrimination and harassment due to their informal status,” says Pawa. Events like the World Cup for Trash Collection can raise their visibility, destigmatise their work, and push governments to formalise their roles with benefits like minimum wage, health insurance, and PF.

Prof. Dubey adds that while the sector excels in collection, it lacks technology. Formalising workers, training them to sort higher-value materials like PET, metal, and clean paper, and integrating them into PPP models — as seen in Pune — could unlock both efficiency and dignity.

A Mindset Shift

Traditionally, India treated every material as a resource, giving clothes and items multiple “lives,” but consumerism has weakened this mindset. “Demo clusters in key cities could show effective waste management and its community benefits,” suggests Pawa.

India’s participation in the Trash Collection World Cup is less about trophies and more about sustainability. It highlights a nation with high individual effort but weak systemic support. The real test is whether the event can push policymakers to bridge the gap between public awareness and the infrastructure needed to turn 1,50,000 tonnes of daily waste from a crisis into a resource.

Trash Course

· Environmentalists hope the Trash Collection World Cup will help India tackle its

· $ 1.5 Billion Waste Crisis

· India grapples with over 1,50,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste daily