World Cleanup Day: 48 Hrs, 6000 Kilos of Paper Waste Collected by Mumbaikars

Volunteers from the Dawoodi Bohra community collected paper waste from housing societies, offices and schools

Image altered by The Quint/Shruti Mathur

Over six thousand kilos of old newspapers and magazines, cardboard, shredded paper, office files, and used textbooks, were some of the paper wastes volunteers from the Dawoodi Bohra community collected from housing societies, offices and schools in Mumbai over a period of two days.

The two-day paper recycling drive, launched on September 18 to commemorate World Cleanup Day, was undertaken by the Bohra community’s environmental body, the Burhani Foundation.

Over 6,000 kilos of paper waste from offices, schools and households were collected.

Husain Nadir

Huzaifa Husami, Trustee of Burhani Foundation said the response to the paper recycling drive was phenomenal and that young volunteers from the ‘Toloba’ and ‘Nazafat’ teams visited people door-to-door, to collect all types of paper and cardboard waste.

"In two days, we managed to collect over 6,000 kilos of paper waste from offices, schools and households."

Huzaifa Husam, Trustee of Burhani Foundation

The World Cleanup Day, which is commemorated every year on September 18, is the largest civic action movement to engage volunteers across 180 countries.

A Clean Start

Mohammed Kantawala, a 23-year-old volunteer said, “We created an online form and shared with community members across 22 centres in the city. This gave us an understanding about the quantum of waste to be collected from different locations. We then mobilised over 150 volunteers aged 16-26 and divided them into groups to cover all the centres.”

Paper waste collected from different areas in the city were gathered at three collection points in South Mumbai.

Husain Nadir

Paper waste collected from different areas in the city were gathered at three collection points in South Mumbai – Burhani College in Mazgaon, Mufaddal Shopping Arcade in Dongri and Al Sa’adah Housing Society in Bhendi Bazaar.

No Time To Waste!

The paper waste collected are being sorted, segregated and bundled to send it to a recycling plant at Vapi.

Husain Nadir

Fatema Lokhandwala, 38, residing at Mohammed Ali Road, was ready with her bag of waste when a volunteer knocked at her door. She expressed, “I have two kids at home, so there were plenty of used textbooks and papers lying in the storeroom. The pile kept on increasing because of the pandemic restrictions.”

“I feel this was a great opportunity for our kids to clean up the store besides learning an important lesson to reduce and reuse paper as much as possible.”

Fatema Lokhandwala, Resident, Mohammed Ali Road

Majority of the houses covered had senior citizens, who were ready with their paper waste bag.

Husain Nadir

The paper waste collected at different points is being sorted, segregated and bundled to send it to a recycling plant at Vapi, explained 40-year-old Murtaza Sealwala, who is in charge of one collection point.

Mohammed Jariwala, a 23-year-old volunteer said that majority of the houses he covered had senior citizens, who were ready with their paper waste bag. "They said they couldn’t go out and give to local vendors due to COVID hence they were happy to see us come to their doorsteps to collect. A lot of senior citizens wanted us to keep these drive more often," he added.

Three months earlier, Burhani Foundation ran a pilot drive to identify and collect tons of waste paper lying in offices and schools. “Around five tons of paper waste was collected during our pilot, and this waste was recycled into envelopes and writing pads. The success of our pilot gave us the impetus to launch a pan Mumbai drive,” said Huzaifa Husami.

Here's to a cleaner and greener future!

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