From doorsteps to compost pits: How Kerala's 'Green Army' changed waste forever

Thiruvananthapuram | In Kerala, known for its high literacy rate and scenic backwaters, an unlikely force has taken centre stage in the battle against waste--women in green uniforms, knocking on doors with sacks and ledgers in hand.

They are the Haritha Karma Sena--women-led squads who collect and sort rubbish at household level. What started as a local experiment in composting has now grown into a full ecosystem of solid waste management.

The state government says Kerala no longer depends on landfills or centralised dumps; instead, it manages its waste at source, creating jobs and a cleaner environment along the way.

The approach is decentralised, and crucially, it is monitored digitally.

Beyond household waste, Kerala has also begun to set up faecal sludge treatment plants under the national AMRUT programme--a move aimed at tackling the more intractable problem of liquid and sanitary waste.

Talking about the success of the solid waste management initiative, Kerala Local Self-Government Minister M B Rajesh said, "We have achieved self-sufficiency in solid waste management… liquid will take more time, but we are confident about achieving it."

The minister emphasised that strict enforcement and active public participation were crucial in reaching the milestone.

"We amended our Panchayat Raj Act and Municipality Act to give local bodies teeth to penalise offenders. So, those who don't hand over their non-bio waste will not get any services from local bodies, and those who are not ready to pay the user fee will have their user fee charged with the property tax, along with a fine," Rajesh said.

"Our door-to-door waste collection has doubled in the last two years, but still, civic sense has not improved correspondingly. People still throw away (waste)… so we have created facilities now, the focus will be on educating people," he added.

In the last five months, Rajesh said, the government has collected Rs 9.55 crore in fines for littering.

Though, at the heart of the decentralised system is the Haritha Karma Sena -- a network of more than 37,000 trained women workers, mostly from the Kudambashree mission, the minister said.

"The Haritha Karma Sena is a novel initiative. They work at the grassroots level, collecting non-bio waste from door to door. In 2024-2025, they collected 1.52 lakh tonne of non-bio waste… 95 per cent of houses and shops are covered by them," Rajesh told reporters during an interaction here.

Haritha Karma Sena--women-led squads

According to the officials, these "green soldiers" collect, segregate and transfer waste from households and institutions to local collection facilities.

They are not just sanitation workers, but also entrepreneurs, earning from user fees, compost sales and recycling contracts.

Complementing the sena’s work is the Clean Kerala Company Ltd, which acts as an aggregator, transferring non-biodegradable waste to recycling agencies and cement factories for use as Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), officials said.

While solid waste systems are maturing, liquid and sanitary waste remain a challenge.

"We are going to achieve a total treatment facility for sanitary waste. Within the next four months, four regional plants will be set up and 120 tonne of sanitary waste can be treated and processed," Rajesh said.

"It is estimated that 100 tonne of waste is generated every day, but the plants will be able to handle 120 tonne," he added.

Furthermore, Kerala's waste management strategy insists that biodegradable waste must be processed as close to the source as possible, like at homes, institutions, or community centres, with the state promoting bio-bins, compost pits, ring composts, and community facilities like biogas plants.

As of June 2025, more than 25 lakh households have installed source-level devices, while 271 community biogas plants and 1,303 composting facilities treat organic waste daily.

"Also, we are promoting source-level treatment of bio waste and have announced a five per cent tax exemption to all households that have source-level treatment at home," Rajesh said.

Talking about the 2023 Kochi dump yard blaze, Rajesh said in the aftermath of the incident, it was decided to clear all the garbage from the site and claimed that the government was just a month away from achieving its goal.

"We announced in the assembly that we will convert this (blaze) into an opportunity and that area (dump site) will be converted into a garden--a modern waste management destination. Now, we can very proudly claim that 90 per cent of that dumpsite has been cleared.

"Out of 9 lakh metric tonne, more than 8 lakh metric tonne of waste have been cleared… Within one month, the remaining waste will be cleared," he added.