Ambikapur, a city in the state of Chhattisgarh in central India, has tried to use the scourge of plastic pollution to address hunger. It launched the Garbage Cafe in 2019, using the slogan “more the waste, better the taste”. Funded through AMC’s sanitation budget, it was set up near the city’s main bus stand. 

“The idea for the need to tackle two existing problems in Ambikapur: plastic waste and hunger,” Patel says. The idea was simple: to encourage low-income people, especially the homeless and ragpickers (those who collect rags and waste for a living), to collect plastic waste from streets and landfills, and give them hot meals in return.

Rashmi Mondal is a local woman who brings plastic to the cafe. Every morning, she sets out early on the streets of Ambikapur in a search for discarded plastic – anything from old food wrappers to plastic bottles. For her, collecting such detritus is a means of survival.

“I’ve been doing this work for years,” Mondal says, looking at the small pile of plastic she has gathered. Previously, Mondal used to sell the plastic she collected to local scrap dealers for just 10 Indian rupees (£0.09/$0.12) per kilogram – barely enough to survive on. “But now, I can get food for my family in exchange for the plastic I collect. It makes all the difference in our lives.”

Many people who arrive at the cafe come from underprivileged backgrounds, says Sharada Singh Patel, who has worked at the cafe since its inception. “If food is available in place of plastic, we’re not only helping to fill empty stomachs but also contributing to cleaning up the environment.” On average, according to Vinod Patel, the cafe feeds more than 20 people per day.