Citizens donate their items which range from old clothes to unused cables which Swach sorts and decides which ones to send for reuse. (Photo:swachcoop.com)What is to be done with all those unused household items or clothes which pile up in our homes? People are always faced with this difficult question. To help them, Pune-based waste pickers cooperative Swach has been running a programme called ‘V-collect’ which gathers these materials and takes the responsibility to reuse and recycle them for the last 11 years.
Harshad Barde, director Swach, said that it works on the principle of thrift shops and such unused items are sold to people who need these to increase their lifecycle by a few more years.
Items such as old clothes, household utensils, old electrical and electronic items, and toys have a shelf life but people find it difficult to throw these out, Barde said. “It might be for sentimental reasons or logistics. Thus if one has an old washing machine or a broken chair, the waste picker would not accept it simply due to the logistics involved,” he said.
While there are recyclers who buy these items, access to such recyclers can be difficult for most people. Back in 2011, Swach came up with the idea of ‘V-collect’. The idea, Barde said, was simple – what does not constitute daily waste can be donated in the ‘V-collect’ drives. “Before we started this movement, we carried out outreach programmes among citizens to sensitise them about the drive. We told them that their donation would reach the right people,” he said.
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Citizens donate their items which range from old clothes to unused cables which Swach sorts and decides which ones to send for reuse. In the ‘V-collect’ shop located in the old Aundh Ward office off Bremen Chowk, Swach has a collection of clothes, books, electronic items, utensils, toys and so on.
To make the model self-sustaining a bare minimum fee is charged when the items are sold, Barde said. While recyclers have a fixed price for every kind of waste, in the case of reuse, things are not that organised. “Thus a pair of old jeans can be sold for Rs 100 in this shop,” he said.
For electronics, the ones which can be used are sold and the rest are sent to recyclers authorised by Maharashtra State Pollution Control Board. Whatever little is left from the earnings is diverted into scholarships for needy students, he said.
Over the past few years, Swach has been conducting six to eight drives over a weekend which translates into 25-30 drives in a month. To date, the drive has resulted in the collection of 1,21,000 kg of old clothes along with 1,04,000 kg of other material. Old books weighing 4,000 kg were also collected.
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