Hyderabad: Nearly 100 tonne of e-waste is being collected every month by a handful of organisations which are trying to create awareness about recycling and proper disposal of electronic waste in the city. A lot more lies untapped for lack of awareness.

“Tonnes of e-waste is generated in Hyderabad every month, however not many know that quite a significant amount of e-waste can be recycled and reused,” said B. Sandya Sravanthi from Guide Foundation for Development which specialises in recycling e-waste.

Organisations like Earth Sense and Guide Foundation specialising in scientific solutions for end-of-life electronics participated in the Swachh Mela to create awareness about the issue and encouraged people to sign up for disposing e-waste at their homes.

Cloth pads, a greener option:

While managing menstruation has become easy, management of menstrual waste doesn’t seem to have moved anywhere close to being eco-friendly.

The sanitary napkins available in the market are made of petroleum byproducts and it takes 500-800 years for them to decompose. On an average, a woman who uses such pads disposes arou-nd 130 kg of waste in her lifetime and in India alone, around 2 lakh ton-ne of sanitary waste gets accumulated every year.

“Cloth napkins far more hygienic and healthy than the chemical based napkins,” said Ms Mahalakshmi, Hyderabad ambassador of Eco Femme.

The cloth pads are not only eco-friendly but also low-cost as one pad lasts up to two-to-three years.