Founder, Kachrewaale Project
Garima Poonia is the founder of The Kachrewaale Project, now the Kachrewaale Foundation.
She’s a Young India Fellow from the batch of 2015, and began working in the area of waste and environment soon after the fellowship.
Garima visited the Andamans in 2017 as a tourist, and noticed the open burning and dumping of waste in rural Andamans. She began the Kachrewaale Project in Andamans in 2018, with the aim of setting up an end to and system for processing of waste generated in the islands.
In 2019, she was awarded by the Lt Governor of Andamans and was consequently on boarded as SWM consultant for the union territory for two years. Last year, she was also featured in Ashoka Alumni- Our Stories, a book published to celebrate the achievements of 50 notable alumni.
The programs under Kachrewaale and during her tenure with the union territory have led to an increase of more than 600% in the quantities of waste sent from the islands to the mainland for processing.
More recently the foundation has been working on Ocean Plastics extensively, including the initiation of an underwater plastic data collection and clean up program to help preserve coral reefs of Andamans.