Waste management has emerged as a huge opportunity to understand the interconnections between environmental sustainability, public health, local government and social inclusion. Kerala has a unique institutional structure, where the Kudumbashree network of women plays a pivotal role in the decentralised collection, segregation, transportation and awareness creation of inorganic waste through Haritha Karma Sena (HKS). HKS, which started in 2017 as a micro-enterprise initiative under the umbrella of Kudumbashree and in partnership with the local governments, is a significant shift from a centralized waste-management or contractor-driven waste-management approach to a participatory and gender-responsive approach involving the community. This paper proposes an overview of the gendered aspects of HKS, especially in the areas of women's economic participation, skill development, public presence, social validation and civic engagement. It proposes to consider HKS in the context of a local institutional mechanism that connects livelihoods with decentralized governance and circular economy. Meanwhile, the paper also asserts that the empowering power of HKS is not automatic nor even. Women’s involvement in waste management can generate income and increase their social empowerment; the degree of women empowerment however depends on the frequency of payment, safety at work, support from local government and awareness of sanitation work in the public eye. The paper thus takes an analytical stance from a balanced perspective: while HKS has clear transformative potential, it also shows that tensions remain with regard to stigma, precarious work, uneven implementation and incomplete formalisation. In this paper, the available policy material, institutional documentation and emerging body of case-based literature is synthesized to conclude that HKS offers a viable framework to understand how decentralized waste governance can help empower women and promote inclusive local development in Kerala and that it also identifies structural conditions for making the effects of such empowerment lasting and equitable.