Informal Recycling Economies Thesis

Overview

I designed this simulation as a companion visualization to my formal graduate thesis, which can be found here.

I used Processing and applied the concepts of agent-based modelling to model actors within Mumbai's informal recycling sector.

Concept

1. In the simulation, one can see kabadiwalas collecting various materials from randomly-generated home sites, just as they do in reality.

2a. Once they have aggregated all the bundles within a certain distance of their shops, the wholesalers are activated, and they arrive to pick up the bundles and deliver them to their shops elsewhere in the city.  

2b. This second scenario imagines a group of decentralized Material Recovery Facilities in each ward of the city which pick up materials more frequently from the kabadiwala, allowing the kabadiwala to collect more materials per month and increasing his profit margin.

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