They used to be called pickers.
At our MRFs, they now hold a new title.
For decades, India’s 1.5M waste workers have been treated as invisible.
Stigmatized. Ignored. Underpaid.
I’ve stood beside them on the MRF floor in Coimbatore.
I’ve watched a woman separate 7 grades of plastic by touch alone.
No sensor. No ₹15 lakh machine.
Just decades of instinct.
Yet the world called her a picker.
At Cercle X ♾️, we rewrote the title: Resource Manager.
Because waste is not garbage.
It’s value waiting to be unlocked.
And that change is not cosmetic.
It’s systemic.
What changes when the title changes?
📊 Clear career pathways — workers see a ladder: sorter → supervisor → facility lead. The future doesn’t end on the sorting line.
💰 Pay linked directly to recovery % — not charity, not promises. If a line recovers 72% instead of 58%, it shows up in wages. Fair and traceable.
📑 SOPs that turn instinct into process — we capture traditional techniques (touch, smell, sound) into documented workflows, escalation trees, and audit logs. Knowledge becomes system intelligence.
👩🏫 Respect that keeps people on the job — attrition drops when someone is introduced to a client as a Resource Manager, not “waste picker.” Dignity is a retention strategy.
📲 Digital IDs that make workers visible in systems — for the first time, names show up in dashboards, training records, and skill badges. No longer faceless, they’re logged and recognized.
🔧 Safety gear and capped shifts as non-negotiables — gloves, masks, safe hours. Basic for most industries, revolutionary in waste.
📈 Performance tracked with recovery %, throughput, contamination % — not guesswork. Workers get data-backed feedback and growth targets.
The big truth most brands miss
You can’t fix waste without fixing the people system first.
Most corporates chase EPR credits.
Or buy vanity “plastic neutral” labels.
But none of that builds the backbone of the sector — the workers who already do 80% of the job.
We don’t need more buzzwords.
We need better systems for the people who make recovery possible.
Because the real circular economy is not about recycling machines or glossy dashboards.
It’s about turning invisible hands into visible professionals.
Everyday proof
At Cercle X ♾️, we’re rewriting hundreds of such stories.
Every day.
A title change may look small on paper.
But on the ground, it’s the difference between a job and a career.
Between attrition and retention.
Between being called a picker and being respected as a manager.
That’s how you build a people system strong enough to solve India’s waste crisis.
Agree?