The Milk Bag Project: Nudging Revolution

It is a perfect morning, and the sun has just warmed up. You got your Coffee or Chai waiting in your favourite cup. Looking out of your window as you sip on it, did you once think of where the milk bag you poured your milk from goes after you are finished? No! Not the dustbin. Where does it eventually end up? What happens to it? And can you add up all the milk bags you have used in your life? That would be a vast mountain to imagine!

In 2019, three friends from  Mumbai received a WhatsApp forward about how your simple act of cutting milk sachet can have a detrimental effect on the solid waste management of your city. We all consume milk through plastic milk bags but rarely recycle them. Hansu Pardiwala (Har Ghar Hara Ghar), Kunti Oza (Clean Mumbai Foundation) & Chitra Hiremath (Garbage Free India) zeroed in on this blind spot and started the “Milk Bag Project” to create awareness and facilitate the recycling of milk bags. Until now, they have helped save more than 700kgs of milk bags from going into Landfills and choking water bodies. 

The Milk Bag Project X TribesforGOOD

In December 2021, Tribesfor Good partnered with the Milk bag project to ignite a spark of change. Our Young changemakers, Bharat Lakhotia, Yash Dalal, Raunak Kanoji and Mohit Yadav, showed exemplary enthusiasm in bringing the project to life. They believe climate change concerns are authentic and more pronounced for the GenZ, which will be at the front line facing the devastating consequences of compounded ill-actions. The urge to find solutions and hold the monster to the bay drives our students to seek ways to contribute, learn and be better. 

For 30 days of December 2021, covering the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Gurgaon, the project involved two simple tasks to be done, every day, consistently:

• Wash, dry and save whole milk packets without tearing off the edge completely
• Storing these in your household for 30 days and sending them to a local vendor for Upcycling

The Mixed Blessing of Milk Bags

Not many of us would remember the reusable milk glass bottles our parents had to wash and return for the next purchase from the milkman. With changing times, transportation, storage, manufacturing, and materials cost vary. Hence, different solutions were sought to simultaneously keep prices low and maximize profits. Ergo, plastic milk bags offer the perfect solution as they are durable, free of crushing, lightweight and cost-effective. The freedom and ease of individual comfort allow us to buy as per our will. Now, reusable milk bottles sound almost utopian or exist only in exorbitantly priced organic brands.

India is the top producer of milk, has the largest population of cattle globally, and wears the crown for being one of the largest generators of waste. Inadequate waste management is a looming threat to our environment. Every time we make something, we destroy something. Tearing the edge of the milk packet makes it entirely useless for any recycler or waste collector to earn from it. Hence, they are rarely picked up, often ending up in landfills and water bodies due to poor disposal, only adding to our waste problem.  A single tonne of recycled plastic saves (approximately) 23 cubic meters of a landfill, 3,114 litres of oil, and 20,786 megajoules of electricity.

Decoding Simplicity

Leading by example, our students inspired their communities to participate in and cast a wider net of action. The Design thought was Specific, terse and most importantly, actionable because nothing reinforces an idea better than acting on it. Simply letting an idea float in your mind doesn’t alter your behaviour and is less likely to manifest in change. Now, those painful punishment assignments to write a sentence 10 times in school make sense. 

Committing to doing it for 30 days can seem like a challenge and tiresome. Still, our young Changemakers turned it into an opportunity to collaborate with friends, family and community by getting everyone involved and using social media creatively to spread the message. They also understood that bulk collection benefits the collectors and recyclers that work on economies of scale.

Okay! But what happens to the colourful packets once you have dropped them off at the recycler?

The packets undergo a thorough cleaning at recycling units once again and are dried off. Further, they are cut into small pieces by a machine and processed into plastic granules used to make various products such as garbage bags, pipes and chairs.

Green Nudge: Seeds of a Revolution

Nudge theory argues that positive reinforcement and indirect suggestion is an effective way to achieve non-forced compliance to influence the motives, incentives and decision making of groups and individuals. It was popularized by behavioural economist Richard Thaler and political scientist Cass Sunstein. They went on to win the Nobel Prize in 2017. The claim is that nudges are at least as effective, if not more effective, than direct instruction, legislation, or enforcement

The simple behaviour focused model of the Milk bag project tapped into the innate human desire to do good and collaborate by providing an action list with the least amount of friction. Clear targets were allotted to students who were also provided with contact details of the recyclers. A few of the recyclers even offered door-step collection services.

Changing people’s behaviour can yield favourable results, including environmental and nature conservation. The inclusion of behavioural insights for guiding policy practitioners is becoming increasingly popular, and schemes like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and voluntary opting out of subsidy schemes are a few examples. The Milk Bag project successfully employs the technique to cement conscious environmental choices leading to action.

Our Young Change agents, Mohit, Raunak, Yash and Bharat, reflected on their experience of the Milk bag Project as more of a process being the reward in itself. Of course! They were successful in diverting 2500 milk bags from the landfills. Still, the intimate realization of their small actions eventually made a considerable impact was the most memorable takeaway.  

Collecting bags for 30days made us see that pile of trash right in front of our eyes, growing by the day. We seldom think about the things we buy, stock, hoard and throw in a blink of an eye. The project brought our focus back on the little things we do and their impact on our environment. Thinking over the future scope of the project, they collectively realized just collecting milk bags would not save the environment. It is a significant step, but it should not stop us from doing just that. We do many other things that must be intercepted, altered, and reviewed. For example, the collection and recycling of tetra packs and plastic bottles are feasible extensions of our project. Our responsibility thus does not end here; it is a continuum of constant learning and applying it in our lives to be better citizens of the planet. 

TribesforGood by supporting these Young Change Agents in this journey, decentralized leadership and responsibility by nurturing citizen leaders who can bring about social impact accommodating their personal interests and talents. This is one of the crucial ways to build a nation conscious about social and environmental issues and is not indifferent to them: Working with nature and not against it. 

James Clear in Atomic Habits notes that “All big things come from small beginnings, The seed of every habit is a single tiny decision.” Problems come to life from small actions and inactions compounding over time. So do new habits and behavioural changes, a perfect waterfall model for Revolutions.

Our Change Warrior Tribe: Bharat Lakhotia, Mohit Yadav (Delhi NCR), Yash Dalal and Raunak Kanoji (Mumbai)

Partner Organizations: Har Ghar Hara Ghar, Clean Mumbai Foundation & Garbage Free India

TribesforGOOD is a new-age platform that helps you discover, learn and contribute to issues that you care about by simplifying the journey of a potential changemaker while bridging the talent gap for social enterprises.