Plastic pollution has emerged as a major environmental issue in Batticaloa, severely impacting the region's natural beauty and the health of its community. The once untouched beaches, rivers, and public areas are now marred by plastic waste, which poses health risks to the community and disrupts the livelihood of communities. 

SPM Foundation is an organisation based in Batticaloa, whose mission is to reduce plastic waste by promoting recycling, upcycling, and community-led environmental initiatives. SPM, in partnership with Kabadiwalla Collect as a technical lead, was awarded a grant via round 4 of the Depeche Mode and Hublot and Conservation Collective partnership. 

This is the final round of funding offered through this partnership, established in June 2023 and has disbursed nearly $900,000 to support local community projects around the world that are involved in cleanups, waste management systems and by encouraging local businesses and consumers to make more sustainable choices. 

The project intends to conduct street-by-street surveying of small scrap shops, large informal scrap shops and processors across Grama Niladhari (GN) administrative divisions in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka to create a comparative analysis of demographics, business activities and material flow within the informal supply chain.

Kabadiwalla Connect (KC), an organisation based in India that focuses on decentralised waste management and collection solutions, have extensively mapped waste collection supply chains in Chennai and unpacked informality and informal work's role in the waste collection sector. KC intends to share its knowledge with SPM through this collaboration and provide them with the know-how to conduct a street-by-street survey to map out the informal waste collection supply chain and support them in the analysis and visualisation of the data to create a traceability solution that can be scaled across the island.

Objectives of the project include the following:

1. Conducting field surveys to understand where informal waste collection clusters are situated in the Batticaloa district.
2. Collecting baseline data collection from ledgers regarding the quantity of recyclable and non-recyclable waste collected through the informal sector.
3. Establishing collection through schools and other institutions to leverage the collection of high-value plastics in communities.
4. Summarising findings in a detailed report with actionable recommendations to support the informal sector’s role in waste management

This collaboration aims to map the supply chains that can be used to leverage end-producer-responsibility (EPR) policies and leverage the largely unaccounted work done through informal economies while providing opportunities to increase the collection of discarded high-value plastic from the district.