Let’s Scrap: How Three Friends Turned Waste into a ₹1 Crore-a-Month Green Business
Let’s Scrap: How Three Friends Turned Waste into a ₹1 Crore-a-Month Green Business
From recycling DTH boxes to handling 20,000 tonnes of scrap, this bootstrapped startup is reshaping India’s waste management with tech, transparency, and a social impact twist.
It began as just another day at work for Anuj Bhatnagar, until a meeting about disposing of DTH boxes and Wi-Fi routers opened his eyes to the gaping holes in India’s scrap management industry. Expecting a competitive market of service providers, Anuj instead found a fragmented sector with unreliable vendors, archaic processes, and little transparency. What seemed like a simple disposal task turned into a mission to overhaul an outdated system.
That mission became Let’s Scrap, an on-demand waste collection platform launched in 2023 by Anuj Bhatnagar, Udaibhan Singh, and their third co-founder. Their goal: make scrap disposal as seamless and rewarding as ordering food online, while building environmental awareness at every step.
The company’s model puts suppliers at the center from households and shopkeepers to SMEs and large industries engaging them through awareness drives, tech-powered tools, and reliable service. Customers can schedule pick-ups via the app or website, compare transparent, real-time prices, and even donate proceeds from recyclables to NGOs.
Electric vehicles fitted with digital scales ensure accurate measurements, while payments can be made via cash, UPI, or directly to charity. Residential areas can also opt for digital collection bins, making recycling as easy as dropping off a package. All collected waste is sent to government-approved recyclers, with corporate clients receiving Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) certificates for compliance.
Technology sits at the heart of the operation. Route planning algorithms optimise pick-up efficiency, pricing tools track global and regional commodity rates, and collection agents use the Let’s Scrap app to digitally log every scrap load with photos and material details. From there, waste is sorted at Material Recovery Facilities into paper, plastic, metal, e-waste, and more, before being sold to authorised recyclers.
In just two years, the startup has processed over 20,000 metric tonnes of scrap across 12 cities including Delhi, Gurugram, Jaipur, Chennai, Panipat, and Chandigarh, servicing both corporate clients and 4,000 households. Aditya Birla Fashion Retail, for instance, shifted its Rajasthan warehouse’s 24 tonnes of annual scrap to Let’s Scrap, gaining compliance documentation and better value in the process.
Bootstrapped with ₹1.2 crore from the founders’ savings, Let’s Scrap now earns close to ₹1 crore in monthly revenue, with profit margins of 20–25 percent. Its 200+ corporate clients span e-commerce giants to FMCG chains, while its community impact extends to raising environmental awareness and supporting NGOs through recycling proceeds.
“We make waste recycling convenient and impactful, turning a mundane task into a rewarding experience,” says co-founder Udaibhan Singh. For Anuj, client feedback fuels the journey, proof that sustainability, when paired with technology and trust, can create both profits and planet-friendly change.
