🧹 How Indore Became India’s Cleanest City

and a circular economy role model

For 8 years straight, Indore has worn the crown of India’s cleanest city.

Not once.
Not twice.
Eight. Years. In. A. Row.

At first glance, this might seem like a cosmetic achievement. Swept streets. Painted walls. Fewer garbage dumps.

But that’s just the surface.

Behind the spotless facades lies one of the most functional, scalable, and innovative urban waste management models in India today.

This isn’t just about cleanliness.

Indore is quietly showing India how to build circular cities.

Let’s explore how 👇

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🛠 The Indore Model: Engineering Cleanliness from the Ground Up

Indore didn’t just introduce a few programs.

It rebuilt its waste management ecosystem from scratch, with discipline, scale, and public participation.

Here’s what sets the city apart:

1. 100% Door-to-Door Collection

Every household in the city — over 4 lakh of them — is covered under a well-orchestrated daily collection system.
Trucks with GPS tracking and dual compartments (for wet and dry waste) pick up waste every single day.

No missed homes. No piles on street corners.

📱 Citizens even use an app to track pickup times and report issues.

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2. Decentralized Segregation at Scale

Indore operates over 600 “transfer stations” and decentralized mini-MRFs.

This ensures waste is:

• Collected faster

• Segregated more efficiently

• Sent to the right downstream process — composting, recycling, or energy recovery

These centers are staffed, monitored, and fully functional.

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3. High Material Recovery Rates

Indore diverts nearly 70% of its waste away from landfills.

How?

• Composting almost all of its organic waste

• Recycling over 6,000 tons of plastic into roads, tiles, and construction materials

• Sending reject waste to co-processing units (like cement kilns)

This makes it a rare Indian city to actually practice the “reduce-reuse-recycle” loop.

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4. Waste-to-Wealth in Action

Indore doesn’t just manage waste.
It generates revenue from it.

In 2023 alone:

• ₹100+ crores were generated through compost sales, recyclables, and carbon credits

• The city’s biogas plant powers buses

• Plastic waste became road material and construction blocks

This isn’t just sustainability. It’s circular entrepreneurship at a municipal scale.

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5. People-First Governance

Indore didn’t achieve this with just tech or infrastructure.

It happened because the people were made partners.

From “Swachhata Doots” (cleanliness ambassadors) to local NGOs and school students, citizens have been consistently engaged in:

• Street plays

• Contests and awareness drives

• Swachhata rankings by ward

There’s pride in being clean. That emotional connect matters.

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💡 What Other Cities Can Learn

Let’s face it: most cities in India are still struggling with:

• Poor segregation

• Open dumping

• Underfunded sanitation teams

• Tokenistic EPR implementation

Indore shows us that this can be fixed — with the right mindset and model.

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🧠 Final Thoughts

Indore is not perfect. But it is persistent.

And in a country battling with over 62 million tons of annual waste, it stands tall as a model of what’s possible.

The next phase?
Scaling this across 100 cities.
Investing in infra.
Building citizen trust.
And enabling private partnerships.

Because this isn’t just about cleaning up.

It’s about rethinking how cities work — from linear to circular.

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🔍 P.S. What I’m Exploring Next:

In the next issue, I’ll break down:

• How Mangaluru is leveraging automation in sanitation

• India's new EPR Draft (2.0) and why brands should pay attention

• Visual deep dives into India’s waste economy (infographics + data)

If you're building in sustainability, circular economy, or urban innovation — stay tuned.

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📬 If you found this valuable, hit that Subscribe button.

Or better — forward this to someone who needs to rethink how their city handles waste.

Let’s clean up the future, one model city at a time. 🌱