In 2020, due to the pandemic, residents of Kasturba Nagar Association (ROKA) had to do without their annual e-waste collection drive. So, they are holding an e-waste collection drive as 2021’s opening event.
The three-day exercise ends on January 10.
“We organised this drive for the first time in November 2019. This year’s drive has generated greater enthusiasm among residents than the one back in 2019. In fact, residents from faraway places like Velachery, Tambaram, Anna Nagar, Shenoy Nagar and Kilpauk have been coming to Kasturba Nagar to dispose of their e-waste. People from localities that are not as far-away — Mylapore, Thiruvanmiyur and Mandaveli — have made use of this drive. Through various social media platforms, we spread the word about this exercise,” says Janani Venkitesh, secretary, ROKA
Similarly, an e-drive was held at a Corporation playground in Kalaskshetra Colony, Thiruvanmiyur, from December 27 to January 7. Kalakshetra Colony Welfare Association (KCWA) wrote to its residents to create awareness about the drive.
“We had to have it running for 10 days, because Kalakshetra Colony has a sizeable number of seniors. A few resident-volunteers visited their houses and collected the gadgets. This is the first time we are organising such a drive in Kalakshetra Colony; and plan to have it only once a year, because we have more of an elderly population and therefore generation of e-waste is relatively low,” says Vaishnavi Rahul Acharya, a resident of Kalakshetra Colony who coordinated the exercise.
The Federation of Perumbakkam Residents Welfare Association organised an e-waste collection drive in the third week of December.
“Work-from-home and online classes have some to stay in some form, and therefore, consumption of electronic goods would only increase. So would generation of electronic waste. So, we organised this drive and plan to continue with it,” says Srinivasan Subramaniam, a resident who leads the Federation’s waste management initiatives. “Residents of Medavakkam also came to drop their e-waste. Around 150 kg of electronic waste was collected in the one-day drive. As a good number of our residents work in the IT sector, we plan to organise it twice a year. The next exercise will be held in August 2021. We have also kept a bin dedicated for e- waste collection at the office of the Perumbakkam Panchayat.”
