Plastic and pollution go hand in hand, and to control this menace, the residents of Dombivli have joined hands with Urjaa Foundation, an NGO. In an initiative launched this weekend, the residents plan to deposit their household plastic waste with Urjaa Foundation once a month. The collected plastic will then be sent to Pune for recycling and producing industrial fuel.
On Friday, Dombivli's Tilaknagar Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal launched a unique initiative with the NGO to collect plastic waste from the suburb's residents.
"Plastic is so damaging to the environment that we wanted to do something about it. We learnt about Urjaa Foundation and approached them," says Sandeep Vaidya from the mandal.
In the last two days, i.e., Friday and Saturday, residents deposited over 50kg of plastic, including bags and bottles.
"The collected plastic will be sent by Urjaa to Rudra Foundation in Pune, where it will be used to manufacture fuel," says Snehal Dixit, a representative from Urjaa, which was founded in July 2015.
Since December 2016, Urja has been working on the initiative of collecting plastic from Thane once a month and sending it to Pune.
"Now, it will be in Thane and Dombivli once a month from our side," she says.
The cost of transportation is borne by Rudra Foundation. "Normally, people come and deposit plastic at the venue and we collect it from there and ship it to Pune," she says.
Urjaa has also launched a joint initiative with the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation which is called 'My plastic waste my responsibility'. Through this also the waste is collected from residents once a month. From this month onward, KDMC has strictly asked the citizens to segregate wet and dry waste, or else face action.
