DU students take on waste: Raise awareness about environment

On World Environment Day, June 5, students of Delhi University are proactively working to tackle the concerns of e-waste, cloth waste and improper disposal of used masks and gloves, amid the pandemic. Some are also engaging themselves in plantation drives.

Subscribing to Greta Thunberg’s channel and holding digital protests isn’t just what students from various Delhi University colleges are limiting themselves to. This year, while celebrating World Environment Day, some students of the varsity are all up for proactive drives, like Project Srijan.

Students from various colleges of Delhi University are engaging in clean up drives, reusing e-waste and disposing off medical waste, to keep the environment clean.

This initiative in Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS) has been initiated to tackle the problem of electronic waste by ensuring its proper disposal. “Amid the pandemic the reliance on gadgets has increased manifold leading to a greater amount of e-waste. To tackle this problem head on, we have placed customised bins in various target markets to provide convenient disposal options. Old wires that don’t work, and other electronic gadgets that people usually discard under a tree because of not knowing what to do with it, can now dispose the waste in a productive way,” says Parnika Srivastava, a final year student of SSCBS, informs, “We also channelise this e-waste to help an underprivileged community, by providing them employment opportunities by producing DIY products using the waste component of the collected e-waste. This is then sold through third party, at various digital carnivals.”

Elaborating on their efforts, especially amid the lockdown, Tanmay Bhateja, a first year student of SSCBS, says, “Our team comprises more than 50 students at present. To continue sensitising the masses, the team undertook online sessions with several colleges and schools, and urged them to hold on to their e-waste during the current lockdown, and give us an opportunity to dispose it in the right manner when the situation permits after lockdown opens. We plan to install specialised e-waste bins in as many public places as we can.”

This Environment day, the group of students from SSCBS will celebrate their achievements by connecting digitally and discussing how far they have made it, in tackling e-waste throughout Delhi-NCR. “So far, through conducting collection drives using customised bins we have succeeded in channelising more than four thousand kgs of e-waste to the formal recycling sector within just one year of operations; ensuring proper disposal from various areas including Rohini, Greater Noida, Nehru Place, Pushp Vihar, Ghaziabad, Malviya Nagar, Vivek Vihar, Indirapuram etc,” says Nimish Dayal, a second year student of SSCBS.

Besides electronic waste, the sudden rise in medical waste has also become a growing concern in the times of pandemic. To tackle this, and rid their housing societies and complexes from such waste, some DU students will be seen clad in PPE kits and protective gear, to clean the locality and streets nearby their homes. “Me and my friends reside in the same locality, and are going to clean our streets by properly disposing off used masks and gloves. The pandemic has resulted in a lot of garbage that includes face masks, face shields and gloves. Gloves and face shields are basically plastic and do not decompose; masks leads to an increased cloth waste. Therefore not ensuring their proper disposal pollutes the environment terribly. And if not disposed properly, these can be put to reuse and sold as fresh pieces, as reported by the Delhi Police in a recent case. Therefore, as citizens of the nation, it is our duty to clean the waste and protect the environment,” says Pooja Santosh, a student of Hindu College.

And there are some DU students who are also engaging in plantation drives, to mark this day! “On World Environment Day, I’m engaging in a plantation drive along with my friends,” says Abhishek Kumar, a student of Kirori Mal College, adding, “We have all resolved to plant seeds or saplings, and nurture them. We’ve even purchased seeds for this activity, and while we won’t be able to do it together in our college, we will do it near our homes and share our photos with each other and our classmates.”

Author tweets @FizzyBuddha

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