Community Recycling Hubs

The ask

Build a franchise of neighbourhood-scale plastic and paper collection hubs that pay waste-pickers a declared floor price, aggregate sorted material, and sell to industrial recyclers at a margin.

Why now

Bangladesh's Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules are tightening, creating formal demand from FMCG brands needing certified recycled-content supply. Digital payment rails (bKash, Nagad) now let hubs pay collectors instantly, removing the cash-float problem that has kept this fragmented. Informal waste-pickers already sort at kerb level — formalising them is faster than building new collection infrastructure.

Why Bangladesh

Dhaka generates roughly 6,500 tonnes of solid waste per day; less than 10% is formally recycled. The existing tokri (informal collector) network is vast and underserved — a hub model can double their earnings while delivering sorted feedstock that commands a 30–60% premium over mixed waste. Dense urban wards mean a single hub can serve 20,000 households within walking distance.

As a business

Revenue comes from selling sorted plastic, paper, and metal to recyclers and packaging manufacturers; a secondary stream is EPR compliance certificates sold to brands. Each hub is a franchise unit — the franchisor earns a per-tonne aggregation fee and provides the weighing, payment, and quality-sorting system. Margin widens as volume unlocks direct contracts with larger offtakers.

Economics

Move the sliders to model your own hub. Defaults are order-of-magnitude estimates — pressure-testing them is part of what a founder pitches us.

What ZEPH would back

A founder who has already run one hub profitably and understands the informal collector relationship — not someone solving this from a spreadsheet. We want to see a clear franchise playbook that can replicate across 20+ wards before Series A, with traceable tonnage data that brands will pay for.

Impact

A formalised collection hub intercepts mixed recyclables that would otherwise be open-burned or landfilled; at 500 kg/day, one hub diverts roughly 150 tonnes/year from the waste stream, avoiding an estimated 435 tCO₂e/year versus open burning. By paying above-market rates to waste-pickers, each hub also raises household incomes in Bangladesh's 1.5 million-strong informal recycling workforce. The hub aggregates volumes large enough to attract certified recyclers willing to pay premium prices for separated streams, increasing the per-kg value recovered versus loose informal sales. Nationally, if 1 000 hubs reach the 500 kg/day default, the network diverts 150 000 tonnes/year — roughly 5% of Bangladesh's total plastic waste generation.