Recycle Trade India- Making the ‘Best’ Out of Waste

 Sumit Khandelwal has a simple belief- A job gives 25% growth till you have the risk taking appetite and after that only 10%, following which, there is nothing brighter. While, on the other hand, a business gives a 5% growth for the first few years and if it all goes well, the spotlight awaits you; and even if it doesn’t, one comes out satisfied- this is what led him to quit his job and start Recycle Trade India, which deals with waste recycling.

“I evaluated a lot of business ideas and realized that it makes sense to work on something which I foresee would boom in the next 3 years, will have a high gross margin and is a well established industry in the international market,” says Sumit. This claim receives corroboration from the existence of other startups like Attero and Ecocentric who’ve been doing some remarkable work in the same field.Recycle Trade India aims to be a one stop solution to scrap trading, the scrap recycling business and know-how of the scrap industry.

After an MBA and a corporate stint, Sumit started Recycle Trade India with some help from his brother, Chanchal, an MBA from XIMB. The core team of five manages everything from accounting to roaming around in ‘kabadi’ markets to build networks. How does the trading work?

• A potential member lands on to the site, registers and becomes a member for free.
• The updates for the relevant field are shared with every member.
• The members are allowed to post their Buy/Sell offer on the portal which is sent as an email feed to relevant buyers/sellers involved.
• The communication is channelized in case someone finds an interesting offer, and then the deal is settled.

Recycle Trade India charges a commission on this transaction.

The Scale of This Market         

The Scrap Industry’s total valuation is really tough to quantify as it makes up for around 20% of the total fresh goods sold in India and everything and anything is recycled and reused. To give a rough estimation, 5 lakh tonnes of e-waste is generated in India and almost 20% or more is imported. India, however, has only 5% of this being handled in a systematic manner by recyclers and the rest goes to the un-organized sector. There is a huge inefficiency in the channel. Recycle Trade India focuses on this pain-point and is trying to provide a bridge over the gap by providing know-how of the industry and helping SMEs set up new recycling plants on the basis of guidance from international agencies and firms.

Few sectors have already shown signs of improvement. With government regulations coming in, scarcity of land for landfills and a focus on Go Green Initiatives, the sector is set to boom tremendously in the next 5 years.

Outreach and the revenue model

The Go Green concept and sustainability idea has allowed RTI to get into tie-ups and conduct events with colleges and companies. “We work on Barter models for advertising and other online tools to gain visibility,” says Sumit.

The current revenues are generated through deal closure commissions, sales of business plans, consultants’ closure of deals on business plans, and set up and machinery sales margins. RTI plans to monetize their website and charge for membership further down the road.

More about them here.