How to get started on community recycling
The Hindu
A gated community on OMR on what went to selecting vendors and the role of children for such events
In March, when House of Hiranandani Upscale in Egattur organised ‘RRR’ (reduce, reuse and recycle) they identified three vendors to collect the gated community’s eWaste, clothes and shoes.
Rajeswari Harish, a core member of community’s Green Team, says they chose three vendors as they wanted to make sure each of them is adept at handling waste in their particular segment and nothing goes to the landfill.
It must be noted that some recycling companies collect all kinds of waste from residents before sorting and sending it to recyclers focused on a particular item.
“We also wanted the vendor to recycle as locally as possible,” says Rajeswari. From the drive, 380 kg of footwear; 1277 kg of clothes and 560 kg of eWaste were collected by WasteWinn, Recyclemart and Virogreen respectively.
“The clothes vendor had a complete solution regarding what they were going to do with the materials collected. They get good and not-so-good clothes too,” she says. The eWaste player has a unit at Gummidipoondi and the apartment was even planning to take the children on a tour of the factory.
For eWaste, Rajeswari says, it is important that the vendor produces a destruction certificate after completion of the process.
To drive the message home really hard, the Green Team started working a month in advance.