Soon, thousands of schoolchildren in the State will walk onto their campus carrying a bag filled with discarded plastic bottles and ditched electronic devices.
In a unique initiative to weed out the menace of e-waste and plastic, the government is in the final stages of clearing a unique proposal involving a ‘green army’ of students from the State, CBSE, ICSE, and private schools. They will have the twin advantage of playing a key role in environment protection and earning some pocket money from the sale of e-waste and plastic.
Parents also
“We have plans to give them Rs.25 per kg of e-waste. Parents will also be encouraged to join hands with the children in this endeavour,” Kabeer B. Haroon, Managing Director of the government’s Clean Kerala Company (CKC), told The Hindu .
The project proposal suggests that students could bring the discarded materials in a special bag for collecting e-waste on a periodic basis. A teacher in each school will be entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating the project. The faculty member will weigh the e-waste brought by the students and maintain a register to record it.
NSS units
“NSS units in the schools will also be part of the drive. They will form teams and visit establishments and houses nearby their campus to collect e-waste and plastic materials. The local bodies concerned will collect the waste materials from the campus on a regular basis and hand it over to the CKC,” said Mr. Haroon.
Students could seek the help of parents in bringing washed plastic scrap as it helps in generating better rates from the recycling industry that will eventually buy the recyclable e-waste and plastic scrap generated in the State, he said.
The government will be rolling out the e-waste school campaign by tagging it along with the United Nations-backed initiative to phase out production, import, and export of products that contain mercury, including blood pressure monitors, clinical thermometers, and high-pressure mercury lamps by 2020.
