Karthik Kapoor
Chair of ISWA's Young Professionals Group
I am a waste and circular economy specialist with 10 years of experience working across India, South Asia, and several African countries on municipal solid waste and resource management. My background is in civil engineering, and I completed my M.Sc. in Sustainable Resource Management from the Technical University of Munich, specialising in waste management and environmental economics.
From the beginning of my studies, I have been motivated to address waste challenges in the Global South and to apply the best available knowledge to design practical, context-appropriate solutions. Today, I work as an independent consultant with international organisations such as GIZ, the World Bank, UN, and others, mainly on policy design, EPR systems, marine litter, circularity assessment, and municipal waste planning. I also run my own firm, through which we implement impact projects that span the full chain from technical planning and financial analysis to on-the-ground system changes with communities and local governments.
What inspired your organisation to join ISWA, and how has ISWA helped in your career?
I first joined ISWA as part of the Young Professionals Group while still at university, seeking a community that took waste management seriously. Through ISWA, I found mentors, co-authors, and friends; I wrote my thesis in close exchange with experts from the network, and many of the people I met then still guide my thinking and career choices today.
ISWA has been a moral compass for me – a place where I can test ideas, learn what “good practice” really looks like, and stay grounded in science while working in highly political, complex environments. The knowledge products, discussions, and informal conversations inside the network have helped me grow from a motivated student into someone trusted to lead technical work on circularity and waste systems in multiple countries.
What are the biggest projects/ initiatives in waste management that your organisation has achieved so far?
I have contributed to the development and rollout of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems in both India and Bangladesh, including authoring the World Bank report on advancing the circular economy for plastics in Bangladesh.
Under the CLOCC project with Avfall Norge, I helped carry out a comprehensive waste assessment and co‑developed a district‑level waste master plan for Chengalpattu in Tamil Nadu, including economic and financial analyses.
In Puri (Pentakatha area, Odisha), I am leading work to design, implement and monitor a community waste collection system, including behaviour‑change campaigns using the RANAS approach.
With ISWA and partners, I have co‑developed indicators and tools for measuring circularity in cities and contributed to technical guidebooks and handbooks that cities can use to track higher‑R strategies such as reuse and refurbishment.
These projects are important to me because they link high‑level policy and methodology with very concrete changes on the ground, from regulation to collection routes and community engagement.
What have your biggest challenges been so far?
One of the biggest challenges is translating good intentions and strong ideas into real change on the ground, because waste systems are never a one‑person effort. They require alignment between municipalities, informal and formal private sector actors, communities, producers and regulators, each with different motivations and constraints.
A second challenge is that waste is still seen as a niche sector, despite the fact that it touches everyone’s daily life (I still remember early career advice that to survive you need to do ESG and all, waste won’t pay your bills). There is rarely a clear, visible career pathway; many young professionals do not “know someone who is doing this” that they can emulate, and market demand for specialised waste expertise is still catching up in many countries.
Finally, working with government systems is something we are rarely taught at university: you learn by making mistakes, facing rejections, and slowly understanding how to navigate governance and institutional change.
In your opinion, what are the most pressing issues in the waste sector that should be addressed today?
In my view, segregation at source is the most pressing issue globally; without it, almost every downstream solution becomes more expensive, less efficient, and less socially acceptable. Source segregation is fundamentally a community practice, not just a technical requirement, and we have not yet cracked how to sustain it at scale in most cities of the Global South.
The second critical issue is organic waste. In many Global South contexts, organics can easily make up around 60% of municipal waste, which means that getting organic waste management right can solve a large part of the overall problem. Strategies such as decentralised composting, anaerobic digestion, and prevention of food waste are therefore not “add‑ons” but central to any serious waste system transformation.
On a personal note – I have been doing home composting myself for the last 3 years, it requires discipline, but it is rewarding, a small win I would say
What are the trends in waste management excites you the most?
I am most excited by the shift from “waste management” to “material management” – looking at flows of plastics, organics, construction materials, Li, RREs, and so on across their whole life cycle. This lens opens up possibilities to design systems that are not only cleaner but also more resource‑efficient, climate‑smart, and economically resilient.
This trend also creates space for new collaborations between cities, producers, recyclers and citizens, where waste is seen as part of broader material and climate strategies rather than a stand‑alone municipal problem. It enables us to talk about circularity, higher‑R strategies and product design in a way that directly connects to people’s everyday lives.
What role do you see ISWA play in driving sustainable practices globally?
For me, ISWA is a critical global platform for advocacy and knowledge leadership on what good waste and resource management looks like. During my university days, ISWA reports and publications were among my main learning materials, and they still influence how I think about systems and standards today.
ISWA’s strength lies in convening very diverse stakeholders – from cities and companies to researchers and informal sector representatives – and creating a space where we can debate what is “right” or “wrong” and, more importantly, why. By grounding these discussions in data, real‑world practice, and lived experience, ISWA can help shape narratives and policies that move the world towards more sustainable and inclusive waste systems.
How can ISWA members collaborate more effectively to address shared challenges?
I believe we can collaborate more effectively by creating more structured opportunities for cross‑learning and by actively highlighting good practices and practitioners’ voices. Too many valuable lessons remain locked in individual projects or countries; ISWA has the reach and credibility to surface these experiences and connect people who are facing similar challenges.
This also means going beyond one‑way information sharing and focusing on co‑creation: joint projects, peer reviews, mentoring relationships and thematic working groups where members troubleshoot real problems together. In a sector as complex as waste, collaboration is not a luxury but a prerequisite for impact.
ISWA has an active Young Professionals Group as a special task force, what would be your advice to them looking to make a difference in the waste sector?
As someone who has been active in the Young Professionals Group and now serves as its Chair, my advice is to think beyond individual careers and focus on building a true community of practitioners. We can make a real difference when YPG is not just a mailing list, but a space where we share ideas openly, debate them respectfully, and learn to see issues through the eyes of people with very different backgrounds and experiences.
If we manage to cultivate that culture – curiosity, humility and mutual support – then each young professional is better equipped to navigate a non‑linear career path in a “niche” sector, and together we can push the waste and resources agenda much further than any of us could alone.
