Here is day in the life of a wastepicker from Delhi
Context
Delhi alone produces 30 tons of waste in one day. There are slums allocated for dealing with this waste. People here collect, segregate as well as live with our waste.
​
Women here work from 8-10 hours every day, without safety gear for heat, toxic waste and gases, and yet are barely able to make a living.
Opportunity area
Chintan Foundation works with these waste pickers to provide them with a better and green livelihood. They run many projects to fight against poverty, child labour, gender-based violence and climate change using waste as their tool.
​
One such project is 'Neki aur Pooch Pooch' where a group of former waste-picking women produces toxin-free and sustainable dog toys.
My role
I helped kickstart the project by designing and delivering the first batch of toys. I did secondary research, field research, ideated, produced and delivered 20+ prototypes out of which 12 were selected for manufacturing.
Secondary research
Understanding why the dogs need toys in the first place, types of toys available in the market and material research.
Market research
Material library
​
For the project we were looking for toxin free, durable, biodegradable, local and budget friendly materials. A few materials came from upcycled/recycled waste.
Feild research
Case study
-
Fly on the way
-
Behavioral mapping
-
Affinity mapping for materials
Coco golden retriever is a heavy chewer. Both her owners (Neha and Sudeep) work and she spends the day by herself and her many toys like silicone donut, plastic chew ball, nylon rope tugger and his owner's flipflops.
​
A blue sheep plush toy is her favourite out of all the toys she owns. It is new (bought one month ago), it sqeaks, is small enough for her to carry around and is comforting. She would bite it, roll it on the floor, try to pull out it's eyes, nose and tail. When she fails to pull them out she gets restless and shakes the toy violently.
​
The plushy is made of fleece and plastic. It is attractive but with use Coco ends up ingesting some of it's fleece. Neha and sudeep try to get rid of toys before it reaches that stage. They also mention that Coco destroys her toys frequently and it is expensive to buy toys for her every month but it is needed.
Ideation and final deliverables
The prototypes were designed keeping in mind the background of the team. There had to be a balance between simple production techniques and market expectations.
​
I also had to to systematically break down the entire production process to help them train. I heavily relied on storytelling to help them remember the sequence of steps of making.
​
As of April 2024, the instagram page of Neki.aur.pooch.pooch will launch soon. Check it out for more info.
The Project is under NDA
