CHENNAI: Chennai residents can now buy and sell reusable and recycled products online as the Greater Chennai Corporation on Friday launched a new website that facilitates waste-trading.
The first-of-its-kind website in India, www.madraswasteexchange.com, has a variety of products made from dry and wet waste such as school bags, slippers, vermi-compost, manure, coconut powder, lemon dishwash among other products.
All the products are priced suitably and is available in 210 Resource Recovery Points (RRPs) across the city. Residents can visit the website and sign up for free.
If they are sellers, they can drop the products in the RRPs in their area, and, if they are buyers, they can choose from the available products in the RRP and purchase it on the website using credit/debit card.
Following this, they can collect the product from the RRP.
The city currently generates 5,220 metric tonnes of waste daily. Out of this, 2610 MT is wet-waste which is being recycled by the corporation in various composting methods.
Earlier, the civic body used to give compost to local residents in each zone for Rs 10 per kg. ‘‘This exchange platform online may have a wider reach now with more people buying and selling. This will promote the zero-waste policy which is to reduce waste going to landfill,’’ said a corporation official.
This website is part of the Smart City Mission and currently, the civic body only sells dry and wet waste. ‘‘Following the public response for this, we will add option for exchanging e-waste in the website,’’ added the official.