BENGALURU: Two 15-year-olds, who are also best friends, collected 82 kgs of e-waste to be sent for recycling in just one month. The duo’s intention is to help the environment while also spreading awareness on e-waste, one neighbourhood at a time.
For Nidhi L Rao and Mridula J, the campaign started while looking out for a school project they could do. “Our school encourages us to take up projects, and we did not know what to do initially. We were looking at social issues, but we realised that environment is a growing concern right now,” says Nidhi L Rao. Both of them are class 10 students at Sri Kumaran Children’s Home.
Once the duo decided on the project, they read up on e-waste and visited Ensyde, a non-profit organisation that aims to reduce the carbon footprint of various organisations and institutions. They started the project by going door-to-door in their neighbourhood – MS Ramaiah City in JP Nagar 7th phase - and explaining to families what e-waste is and why it should not be dumped with other dry waste. “We learned about one village in India that suffered because of cities dumping their e-waste near the village,” says Mridula J. “That scared us. In the village, people’s skin was getting affected because of the toxicity of the e-waste,” adds Nidhi.Mridula says that it was her father who inspired her to come up with the idea for the project, since he had already succesfully set up an e-waste segregation system at his office.
How they go about collecting waste
Ever since the project began in the last week of May, the two have gone door-to-door distributing posters and talking to families about e-waste. If the family agrees to segregate their e-waste, then they’re given two weeks time to get the e-waste ready for disposal. After noting the contact details, the girls call the house and send a truck to collect the waste. The e-waste is sometimes stored in Nidhi’s basement temporarily, and is then sent off to recycling centres. “We are told that metal parts are recycled and used in new devices such as phones,” says Nidhi. While the response has been mostly encouraging, there have been a few challenges they’ve faced. “Sometimes families look at us suspiciously and wonder what we are up to,” laughs Nidhi. Mridula says that one good experience she had was when a family disposed a computer after eight years of keeping it idle.
The duo is now aiming to set up an e-waste segregation bin in their layout. “There are a few problems with the associations around but I am sure we will be able to establish the bin,” says Nidhi. “In one month, we collected 82 kgs of waste from our locality, I can only imagine how much e-waste will be generated in the entire city,” says Nidhi.