Startup Saturday

Launched with Rs 50k, this Kerala waste management startup is set to hit Rs 1-cr turnover mark

Kochi: A final-year college student, who prepares for civil services exams, finding a passion in waste management and chasing it straight away might sound strange if not absurd. That is exactly how Thajudeen Aboobaker’s family and friends felt when he revealed his idea to them. However, their concerns did not deter him from exploring his new-found interest – one that had little glamour to flaunt. Eight years after he made up his mind about what was he going to do, Aboobaker now runs Urban Trash, a promising startup in the waste management sector where the demand is growing daily.

Urban Trash, the nascent firm the youngster started in March 2022 with a meagre capital of Rs 50,000 loaned from a family friend, is set to clock Rs 1 crore in turnover this fiscal. Afsal Mohammed is the company’s co-founder. The company identifies itself as a cutting-edge B2B waste aggregation platform offering tailored solutions for businesses seeking efficient waste collection, responsible disposal, and environmental sustainability.

Urban Trash at present offers its services mainly in Kochi. The company offers its waste management services to business firms on a subscription basis. Urban Trash creates a schedule for waste collection from its clients according to the latter’s convenience. The company collects both food and dry waste, including plastic, from its clients.

Food waste collected from the clients is processed at the company’s treatment plant in Thrissur while dry waste is segregated and sent to recycle vendors. The company finds its front-end revenue from the subscriptions and additional revenue from waste processing. The company also offers its services during big events.

Aboobaker’s startup journey has never been easy until he founded Urban Trash. Right from the moment he decided to tread the road less travelled, he had to face discouragement and several rounds of failure. His determination, nevertheless, did not fail him.

“I live at Pallikkara, close to the infamous Brahmapuram waste treatment yard. From my childhood, I have been seeing the troubles with waste management. When I was doing my final year BSc in Zoology at Sree Sankara College, Kalady, I chose to study waste management in detail. I had to depend on online courses and materials for that mainly. After I finished my studies, I chose to work with people in the field and there were not many at that time,” Aboobaker said.

His search for practical knowledge ended up at Green Worms, a Kozhikode-based waste management company, which was taking only baby steps then. Green Worms’ founder Jabar Karat spoke to the youngster in detail about the challenges in the field. After giving it a week’s thought, Aboobaker joined the company as one of its early employees. Being in a small firm in its initial stage, Aboobaker got the opportunity to understand the waste management ecosystem in and out.

Aboobaker always wanted to start something on his own and he tried his hands at different waste management products and services. Every time his attempt failed, Green Worms welcomed him back. In between he also worked as the project coordinator of a major CSR project in Kozhikode. However, he quit that also in his startup pursuit.

“After several rounds of failures, I was financially collapsed. However, I got immense support from the Kerala Startup Mission at that point. That’s how I could start Urban Trash. Here we try to make waste management a dignified profession. Most of our employees are youth,” Aboobaker said. The company now employs around 30 people.

He said Urban Trash’s business model has been designed in a manner wherein it always gives room for collaboration with other players in the segment. The company’s aim is to emerge as a waste management aggregator platform. It is looking forward to a pan-Kerala expansion and also to roll out a franchise model. For the expansion, it will also be looking for investments from outside.

(Startup Saturday is Onmanorama’s weekend series featuring promising startups from Kerala. Find the previous stories here)