ZERO WASTE LODHA GROUP
Designing community-led behavior change to motivate citizens to reduce or recycle waste
zero waste group within a residential society
The Concept
WHAT IS ZERO WASTE LODHA GROUP?
We are a Resident-led voluntary initiative actively running our community since 2019( Foundation laid in 2017) . We started with a group of 2-3 people and today area 250 Lodha residents strong community 😃😃
OUR GOAL 🥅
This is a group where we are focused at create a zero waste society which means we wish to generate less waste and also ensure whatever waste that is generated does not go to the landfills but reaches correct recycling routes. While there are 4 types of dry waste (paper, metal, glass, plastic), the first 3 have higher incidence of recycling happening due to set up organized supply chain systems for them.Hence, based on criticality of the material, we focus our efforts on plastic recycling today.
How it works
OUR PRIMARY INITIATIVE
After trial and errors, multiple vendors, braving monsoons and even recycling during covid, we now have a regular plastic drive. We have a Weekly Plastic Recycling drive where you can deposit all your dry plastic waste in a bag outside the main gate every Saturday before 10:30 pm. This is then taken to the plastic recycling segregation centre by the partner NGO and they manually further divide it in 15-16 plastic categories and then send each to respective recyclers to be made back into plastic pellets.
Some behavioral change interventions
Impact
ACHIEVEMENT 🎖️
We have done 190 plastic collection drive till now and have diverted more than 9000 kg of plastic from landfills !! About to hit the 10000 kg mark !!
OTHER INITIATIVES 🥳
Over the years, we have met as a community several times, exchanged hacks to reduce plastic, worked together to think of newer ideas to expand the community and awareness. We even had a certificate distribution for regular recyclers as eco-ninjas. The community has also seen other resident led initiatives in past like
-E-waste bin installed,
-E-Waste drives,
-Cloth bag donation drive with over 200 bags donated to Sanjay’s Shop,
-Sharing of any personal zero waste practice or new ideas.( Regular feature )
-Purchase and distribution of water-saving tap adapters
-Neighbourly-A member formed Lending library of appliances, gadgets, household utility things for anyone to borrow from each other
NEW IDEAS / INITIATIVES💡
The group is open for anyone to suggest an idea to reduce or recycle waste, and then ead seeing the idea/ initiative through. Thats how we have come so far ! This community is one of the most supportive and positively inclined towards bettering the well-being of us as individuals and the larger society.