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The Waste and Resource Management Group was established as a result of recommendations and suggestions discussed the Concept paper presented in the forum ‘Committee for Clean Bangalore' in 1989. This concept paper, presented to the Mayor of Bangalore on World Environment Day (WED) June 5th 1990, envisaged that each of the organizations which had helped prepare the paper, would take up a certain number of issues and work out models and practical demonstrations, which could serve as models for the whole city. Subsequently, CEE took up the issues of solid waste management, conservation of green spaces and promotion of civic responsibility as part of its mandate

Eventually CEE succeeded in designing these models not only for Bangalore but for the whole country, especially the solid waste management model is acknowledged as the standard and the best liked model as it integrates the best environmental concepts and practices such as reducing wastage, maximizing reuse and encouraging eco-friendly recycling along with public-private partnership principles. CEE was awarded the UNCHS Global Hundred Award in 1998 for two projects implemented in Bangalore – one on Solid waste management, a community based approach and another for Innovative sanitation facility in low-income areas. CEE also worked on the Biomedical waste management concept and the citation of the Paryavaran Puraskar which CEE received from the Ministry of Environment and Forest (Govt. of India) in 1999, specially mentioned CEE's unique and pioneering contribution in both these fields of Municipal Solid Waste & Biomedical Waste Management

formulation work, having helped the Ministry of Environment & Forests, GOI, to formulate the Biomedical Waste (management & handling) Rules from 1995 onwards, later promulgated in 1998, the Recycled Plastics Manufacture and Usage Rules, in1999, the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules in 2000, Hazardous Waste Management (Revised) Rules in 2003, all under the EPA, 1986 and many guidelines concerning waste and other urban & rural settlements issues, it attained a separate status of a thrust area within CEE only in April 2005 .

One of the most important achievements of WaRM is a full-fledged common biomedical waste treatment facility called CHAMP (Common Healthcare waste Appropriate management Plant), which was designed and executed by CEE and was inaugurated in June 2005 and is envisaged to be one of the most eco-friendly units in India . WaRM is also spearheading the move with the MoEF to nominate CEE as a national member of International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), which will give it voting rights and influence policy globally to make waste management an eco-friendly activity as opposed to the extremely harmful, eco-unfriendly and commercial approach that many developed countries have adopted herein. CEE is also helping the MoEF in addressing the issues of trans-boundary movement of waste (not only hazardous chemicals, which is anyway covered under Basel convention) but many items in the garb of segregated domestic garbage like plastics, metals, batteries and biomedical waste, which are unfortunately being exported by the developed world to industrialized countries like ours.

Waste and Resource Management (WaRM)