Composting capacity where there was none
An ECOMIC composting machine erected at Padappai and Urapakkam — two panchayats that can now process their own organic waste instead of sending it away.
Solid waste management program (CSR – Renault)
A CSR partnership with Renault P. Ltd — putting decentralised composting machinery, village awareness work and trained sanitary crews into the Padappai and Urapakkam panchayats of Kancheepuram district.
2
Panchayats covered
4
CSR activities delivered
2021–2024
Partnership period
The project
What this project set out to do
Project mission
Putting the machinery, the awareness work and the trained crews for decentralised solid waste management into two peri-urban panchayats — so that organic waste is composted where it is generated rather than carted away and dumped.
Renault Nissan Automotive India Private Limited (RNAIPL) — named as Renault P. Ltd in the 2023–24 report — chose solid waste management as a CSR activity at Padappai Panchayat, Kancheepuram district. Coodu Trust carried it out on the ground. The core of the package was the erection of the ECOMIC composting machine at the Padappai and Urapakkam panchayats, the first piece of decentralised waste infrastructure either panchayat had.
Around the machine the trust ran a village-level solid waste awareness campaign covering social engineering, IEC, and monitoring and branding activities — and trained the panchayats’ own village sanitary workers, the sweepers, drivers and other helpers, in the maintenance and follow-up the system needs to keep running once the CSR project ends. The same partnership went on to fund daily collection and composting at Padappai, described on the Padappai Panchayat page.
- Source segregation
- Door-to-door collection
- On-site composting
- Worker & SHG empowerment
Why this work matters
The challenge on the ground — and our answer
The challenge
No machinery, so nothing can be processed locally
A peri-urban panchayat with no composting equipment has only one option for its organic waste: send it away, or let it rot in the open.
Our response
Corporate CSR buys the missing infrastructure
Renault’s CSR funding paid for the ECOMIC composting machine to be erected at Padappai and Urapakkam — decentralised processing capacity that the panchayats then own and operate.
The challenge
Equipment without skills stops working
A waste system only lasts if the people who run it know how to run it — yet village sanitary crews are rarely trained on new machinery or on what happens after it is installed.
Our response
Train the crew, then hand the system over
The village sanitary workers — sweepers, drivers and other helpers — were trained in maintenance and follow-up, and the village-level awareness campaign, IEC and branding gave households a reason to keep sorting.
At a glance
The essentials
- CSR partner
- Renault P. LtdWritten as Renault Nissan Automotive India Private Limited (RNAIPL) in the 2021–22 and 2022–23 reports
- Period
- 2021–2024Recorded in the 2021–22, 2022–23 and 2023–24 annual reports
- Location
- Padappai & UrapakkamPanchayats in Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu
- Our role
- Delivery on the groundCoodu Trust carried out the CSR activity: machine erection, awareness campaign, IEC and worker training
- Infrastructure
- ECOMIC composting machineErected at both panchayats; the same technology is written ECOMAC in the 2023–24 report
- Continues as
- Padappai Panchayat programmeDaily collection and composting at Padappai, four to five tonnes a day
Outcomes
What the project changed
Crews who can keep it running
The panchayats’ sweepers, drivers and helpers trained in maintenance and follow-up, so the system does not stop when the CSR project does.
A village that understands its own waste
Village-level awareness on social engineering, backed by IEC material and visible branding, so that segregation is something households do rather than something done to them.
Get involved
Support zero-waste communities
Help us take decentralised composting to more panchayats — the machine, the awareness work and the trained crew that keeps it all running.