The Coastal Compact

Project Summary

The Coastal Compact is a coastal plastic recovery project on India’s Karnataka coast, working with waste workers from the fishing communities most affected by marine plastic. It organises them into recovery teams and uses a locally built system in vernacular languages, so workers take part regardless of literacy, with each collection verified from the point of recovery onward. This makes recovery visible and verifiable, turning coastal plastic into a gain for the environment and marine life, and income-earning work for a growing network of coastal communities. So far, 50,000 metric tonnes of ocean-bound plastic have been recovered, with the Government of Karnataka and coastal local bodies as partners. Its long-term aim is a self-sustaining network for coastal plastic reduction that Global South coastlines can adopt as the UN Plastic Treaty and EPR take effect.

Presentation of the Organization

Baeru Coast Clear, in Udupi, Karnataka and operational since 2023, builds compliance and verification infrastructure for coastal plastic recovery. Its technology lets coastal workers log recovery in their own languages, uses AI to classify and verify the material, and turns each event into an auditable chain-of-custody record. It runs India’s first rural coastal Material Recovery Facility under a long-term MoU with the Government of Karnataka. Its flagship project is the Coastal Compact.