WAVE (Waste Attitudes & Vendor Engagement)

Chennai’s vending economy, spread across beaches, commercial corridors, and neighbourhood streets, will continue to be a significant contributor to everyday solid waste generation in the city. Beach vendors and street-side food sellers generate large volumes of organic waste, packaging material, and single-use plastics, much of which can enter drains, streets, and coastal environments when waste-handling practices and infrastructure are inadequate. While the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has strengthened conservancy operations and introduced organised vending zones in select areas, there remains limited systematic evidence on vendors’ knowledge, attitudes, and actual waste-handling behaviour across different urban contexts. In particular, the absence of a focused, comparative assessment of beach vendors and street-side food vendors limits the design of realistic, vendor-inclusive interventions. The WAVE project will address this gap by generating practical, location-specific evidence to support improved vendor-linked waste management in priority areas of Chennai.