BMC to rope in Mumbai students to tackle e-waste

Mumbai:To ensure proper disposal of batteries in electronic goods, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation plans to implement the ‘battery waste free’ scheme by roping in students of city schools and colleges. Under the drive, old domestic batteries will be collected through the students by providing separate bins at schools and colleges. According to BMC officials, batteries of domestic electronic goods like computers, mobiles, laptops, notebooks, notepads, printers, telephones, telex, answering systems etc are dumped in house dustbins. They are transported to city dumping grounds, which leads to the pollution of soil and water.

“The plan is to dispose off these batteries in an eco-friendly manner as mandated by the Domestic Hazardous Waste Management Rules. For this, a vendor will be appointed for collection, transportation and recycling and disposal of domestic batteries,” said Siraj Ansari, chief engineer (solid waster management).

The BMC has set up e-waste collection centre on public-private partnership near Mithibai College, Vile Parle. Batteries collected from the city will be disposed off there. The centre facilitates collection of hazardous e-waste from generators of e-waste and get them disposed of in an environment friendly manner. “Specially made dustbins will be installed at city schools and colleges for the collection of domestic batteries,” said Mr Ansari.

BMC has decided to set up e-waste collection centres in each of 24 wards in the city. It has appointed M/s Eco Recycling Ltd (Ecoreco) to set up such centres across the city.

According to a recent study, Mumbai generates 96,000 tonnes of the total 12.5 lakh tonnes of e-waste generated in the country every year. The figure is highest among other metros such as Delhi-NCR and Bangalore, which produce 67,000 tonnes and 57,000 tonnes of e-waste every year respectively.