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India's circular economy can’t succeed on tech and policy alone—it must drive deep behavioural change and shift social norms around waste.
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India presents a fascinating paradox in waste management. While the country has deep-rooted traditions of reuse, repair, and recycling—embedded in practices such as the ubiquitous kabadiwala system—and a cultural ethos of frugality, a prevailing ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality treats waste as someone else’s responsibility. This has resulted in problematic behaviours such as indiscriminate littering in public spaces, mixing wet and dry waste despite segregation bins, and overconsumption of single-use packaging and utensils, ultimately tossed on the wayside.
Modern urbanisation and increased consumption have prompted new waste challenges. According to a study by the NITI Aayog in 2021, India faces an urban waste management crisis, with cities producing approximately 62 million tonnes of waste annually, projected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030.
While cities with sophisticated waste-processing infrastructure often struggle with basic waste segregation, communities with minimal formal systems but good social cooperation achieve remarkable circular outcomes, underlining a critical reality: for a successful circular economy transition, people must learn to think differently and have the desire to change. Even the best infrastructure and policy reforms, which constitute the backbone of waste-management systems, are futile unless people change their everyday behaviours and social norms around waste.
A persistent gap exists across Indian cities between waste-management infrastructure and actual behavioural adoption. While India generates approximately 62 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, only 70 percent is collected properly, and even less is processed appropriately because of non-compliant behaviour by the waste producers. As of 2025, Delhi generates over 11,000 tonnes of waste daily, while Mumbai produces nearly 7,000 tonnes, overwhelming existing infrastructure capacity (Source).
Success of the circular economy hinges directly on citizen behaviour at every stage. Waste segregation remains a major challenge - only 75-80% of the waste gets collected and out of this only less than 30% gets treated or recycled. This disconnect between infrastructure and everyday practices expensive material recovery facilities ineffective and forces cities to rely on landfills, negating circular principles.
Modern urbanisation and increased consumption have prompted new waste challenges. According to a study by the NITI Aayog in 2021, India faces an urban waste management crisis, with cities producing approximately 62 million tonnes of waste annually, projected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030.
Cities such as Pune and Chennai have invested heavily in waste-processing facilities and collection systems. However, they struggle with fundamental challenges such as household waste segregation. Internationally sourced evidence from cities including San Francisco and Copenhagen demonstrates that creating a culture of active participation is critical, making even the most advanced circular infrastructure dependent on intrinsic behaviour change.
Behavioural science identifies three levers for driving behaviour change in circular cities: nudges, boosts, and social norms.
Nudges have conventionally pushed change—encouraging desirable decisions without forcing them—for example, making trash bins available in public areas or sending mobile phone reminders to segregate waste. Although nudges work well in the short term, research shows their effectiveness fades over time and ultimately fails to induce sustained behavioural change.
Hence, the need for boosts becomes imperative, building people’s understanding and behavioural capacities, empowering them with the skills, knowledge, and confidence needed to enable sustained behaviour change and not mere temporary compliance. For instance, when residents understand how to identify recyclable materials and recognise their value, they are more likely to segregate waste voluntarily over time.
India’s circular transition requires fundamental changes in social norms to endure transformations over time. The culture of avoidance must be replaced with a healthier perception of waste, its value, and resultant interactions. These deeper cultural shifts concretise the foundation for widespread adoption and long-term sustainability
India’s circular transition demands a strategic deployment of all three levers: nudges for quick adoption, boosts for sustained practice, and social norms for scale and legitimacy.
The country possesses rich cultural traditions naturally aligned with circular principles. For example, the traditional kabadiwala system represents one of the world's most effective informal recycling networks. With over 1.5 million waste pickers recovering approximately 20 per cent of recyclable materials, this system diverts tonnes of waste from landfills annually.
Furthermore, India’s historical repair-and-reuse culture remains equally strong in many communities, demonstrating an inherent circular thinking that many developed countries struggle to cultivate. Across neighbourhoods, small businesses continue to repair a wide range of items—from household appliances to clothing, footwear, and mobile phones—reflecting a deeply ingrained culture of frugality and resource conservation. This tradition, often driven by jugaad (creative improvisation), offers a strong cultural foundation for advancing circular economy practices.
Nonetheless, significant cultural barriers accompany this cultural innovation. Waste work and its practitioners face persistent social stigma based on old, entrenched social hierarchies. People do not want to be associated with sorting garbage, interacting with waste workers or dealers, or participating in community composting programmes. They would rather just dispose of their waste and forget it, reaffirming the adage—‘out of sight, out of mind’. Urban middle-class households focus on convenience and cleanliness, externalising waste problems rather than engaging with them. Throwing waste from vehicle windows—a common practice across India—reflects this disconnect between consumption and disposal. Younger generations look down on the old habits of frugality and reuse, prioritising convenience and novelty over durability and repair.
The most successful circular cities emerge where infrastructure development and behaviour change programmes are developed simultaneously. Each reinforces the other in a virtuous cycle that accelerates transformation.
Indore's remarkable transformation—from India’s dirtiest city to its cleanest one—exemplifies this integrated approach. The city’s strategy combined infrastructure and service development with an intensive behaviour change campaign targeting households, schools, and communities
The social enterprise Recity, working in Indian cities, remarked that only a 100 percent daily waste collection rate, coupled with visibly clean streets, could create powerful behavioural reinforcement loops and foster a ‘clean begets clean’ phenomenon. It is grounded in the principles of social proof and environmental psychology, wherein individuals modify their behaviour to align with perceived social norms in their immediate environment.
Indore's remarkable transformation—from India’s dirtiest city to its cleanest one—exemplifies this integrated approach. The city’s strategy combined infrastructure and service development with an intensive behaviour change campaign targeting households, schools, and communities. This integrated approach led to 100 percent waste collection and 95 percent processing, positioning Indore as a global exemplar in urban waste management.
Another example is Surat's integrated waste management system, which also combined infrastructure with behaviour change, achieving 90 percent waste collection efficiency and 65 percent waste processing, a figure significantly higher than the national average.
With enabling infrastructure in place and citizens who understand and value the circular economy, they become active participants, leading to improved outcomes.
Social norm transformation cannot be forced; it requires strategies to work with existing cultural currents and move beyond barriers that prevent the scaling of positive practices.
The first step is to identify existing positive practices that already work, and amplify and leverage them. For instance, the kabadiwala system can be formalised and integrated with municipal waste management, while retaining its identity and efficiency. Cities such as Pune have experimented with providing informal waste workers with identity cards, insurance coverage, and dignity of work programmes, enhancing systemic performance and reducing stigma.
Indian cities have unique advantages for transition – strong community networks, existing circular practices, and cultural habits of frugality. However, it requires abolishing stigma, leveraging technology adequately, and building social infrastructure that supports circular behaviours.
Stigma dissipates when such work receives recognition, dignity, and—crucially—offers improved financial returns for the workers. ‘Haritha Karma Sena’ in Kerala empowers local women through waste management work. Such initiatives create new social narratives around the value and importance of circular economy work.
Changing social norms requires strong community leadership and local champions. Numerous successful initiatives demonstrate that neighbourhoods with active residents’ associations or community leaders consistently achieve higher rates of waste segregation compliance—as seen in the Alag Karo initiative in Gurugram. Besides enforcing rules, these local champions model behaviour, celebrate successes, and maintain social pressure for continued participation.
The circular economy transitions in India demand policy integration and infrastructure development paired with intrinsic behavioural and cultural change. Success requires approaching waste as a social phenomenon embedded in cultural practices, economic relationships, and community dynamics.
Indian cities have unique advantages for transition – strong community networks, existing circular practices, and cultural habits of frugality. However, it requires abolishing stigma, leveraging technology adequately, and building social infrastructure that supports circular behaviours. It necessitates transforming how communities understand their relationship with resources, consumption, and collective well-being.
Indian cities are growing rapidly, and the choices made today about waste culture and circular practices will shape resource flows and environmental outcomes for decades. In addition to providing high-tech infrastructure and social behavioural education, the cultural foundations that ultimately determine whether circular economies thrive or fail must be readily addressed.
Vikrom Mathur is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Vikrom Mathur is Senior Fellow at ORF. Vikrom curates research at ORF’s Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED). He also guides and mentors researchers at CNED. ...
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