Mangaluru: The Manipal School keeps a bin in its campus to promote safe e-waste disposal practice

Empty water and soft drink bottles, dysfunctional electric wire with on-off bulbs and an empty cardboard box is among waste material put into the e-waste bin kept at the main office of the Mangaluru City Corporation.

An old UPS, a lithium battery, two alkaline batteries, a toner cartridge and three earphone cords are the only e-waste disposed of in the bin that was kept with all fanfare in August.

This bin at the corporation is among the two bins kept by the Moogambigai Metal Refineries of Baikampady — the KSPCB (Karnataka State Pollution Control Board)-authorised firm in Mangaluru for recycling e-waste.

This e-waste bin comes with six compartments for material such as calculators, watches, floppy discs, pen drives, laptop batteries, chargers, adaptors, toner cartridge, sim cards and batteries. While one bin is near the entrance gate of the Mangaluru City Corporation, the other bin is at the Bharat Mall.

An official from the firm said that the collection of e-waste in the bins was poor. “It is too less to quantify the volume,” said the official, who did not want to be named. Some firms and educational institutions call them and handover old computer monitors and other electronic gadgets. “But this volume is also very less,” he said and added that there was lack of awareness about e-waste recycling.

As part of a campaign for safe e-waste disposal, the Manipal School in Attavar kept a bin on December 20 for collection of waste. The school principal, Anuradha Shivaraman, and some parents of children studying in the school got in touch with the corporation officials and got them to keep the bin there.

“We have education our children about e-waste. They are disposing of worn out batteries, old CDs, wires and other e-waste in the bin,” Ms. Shivaraman said. Children are told to spread the word in their neighbourhood about proper safe e-waste disposal and dump e-waste in the school’s bin, she said. Ms. Shivaraman said that soon after the school reopens on January 2, they will be working out ways for regular collection of e-waste. They are also taking care that no other waste is dumped in the bin, she said.