"Wealth Out of Waste (WOW)" - a corporate level recycling program.

"Wealth Out of Waste (WOW)" - a corporate level recycling program. Launched in - 2007 Launched by - The Paperboards & Specialty Papers business of ITC Focus - Focused on creating scalable solutions for spreading awareness about recycling, encouraging people to segregate & dispose waste responsibly and creating sustainable livelihoods for people working as rag pickers

About. -Wealth out of waste (WOW) – a recycling program launched by ITC – is being received well by the citizens in various southern cities and towns and the company has plans to extend it to the whole country,

 -As against 60-70 per cent of the waste being recycled in the West (the US and Europe), only 14 per cent gets recycled in India.

 -Even China and other Asian countries are better placed, with 25-30 per cent recycling, - Studies are being carried out to explore viability of converting waste plastic to fuel.

   Environmental hazards -

“Roughly, 60 per cent of the waste generated in households consists of paper and the rest, metal, plastics and other things.

 - Awareness of the public about the two-bin system – segregation of waste into two categories (recyclable and the rest) at source. Implementation of the programme in some of the cities and towns in Andhra Pradesh




Generated quantity
-Every day, 4,200 tonnes of waste were being generated in Hyderabad, of which 1,200 tonnes could be recycled.

 Mumbai generating 6,800 tonnes (2,000 tonnes); Kolkata 5,500 tonnes (1,600); Chennai 4,500 tonnes (1,300); New Delhi 6,000 tonnes (1,800) and Bangalore 4,000 tonnes (1,200).


-In all parts of Hyderabad city, ITC, along with Ramky, was implementing the wealth out of waste programme. - “As an incentive, citizens have been receiving Rs. 4 a kg of recyclable waste collected and as a result, those areas are looking much cleaner”.


 -Each individual household is getting roughly Rs. 200-250 a month Extending to other cities -ITC taking up the programme in Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram and it would be extended to the other cities and sought the co-operation of civic bodies, NGOs and other corporates.

-“Economically, ecologically, the programme will pay rich dividends. Recycling is absolutely essential to conserve precious natural resources and to preserve the planet for the posterity,”


-Roughly 900 tonnes of waste were being generated every day in the city and scientific processing of the waste was becoming difficult but ITC has come into the picture with its initiative problem can be summed upto some stage. The company will collect the waste without any charge