SWaCH waste pickers meet the Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on International Women’s day!
8 March 2020, Pune- Women waste pickers celebrate women’s day everyday as they empower the community by enabling cleaner surroundings, and greener environments through enhanced recycling.
On the occasion of International Women’s day, the Union Minister Prakash Javadekar met 500 women from Pune’s SWaCH cooperative of Waste pickers, and discussed issues that affect their everyday lives. The projects that the waste pickers have collectively been engaged in were showcased to him, as were their impact on environmental issues like recycling, waste management, cleanliness of the city. Speaking on the occasion, he said that Women have always been a force to reckon with. ”Consistency in their work, Compassion in all they deal with and Courage to do whatever it takes defines every women. Spending a morning with this group of women who work hard to transform the city is the best possible way to celebrate international Women’s day. In order to enable them to recycle more and better, I will provide financial support for 50 mini, portable and 50 larger recycling sheds”. Lauding the Red Dot campaign which aims to ensure that all sanitary waste is disposed off responsibly, he stated that all producers of sanitary products will be soon required to provide Red dot bags along with their sanitary products making it identifiable and enabling responsible disposal.
The waste pickers in the city collectively gather over 1250 tonnes of wet and dry waste every day in the SWaCH- PMC Door to Door collection system that they manage along with Pune Municipal Corporation. Of this they divert over 220 MT dry waste every day for recycling while enabling composting of all wet waste through the waste generators themselves. 6 tonnes of Multi Layered Plastic which is currently a low value, low recyclable material is also fine segregated and sent for recycling. Through some of the other initiatives, waste pickers also convert HDPE into high value 3D printer filament, divert over 0.5 tonnes of other everyday discarded usable materials like clothes, books, shoes etc for reuse.
The Mayor Pune city Murlidhar Mohol who was also present at the gathering said that “Women are very often the agents of change in every community and impact the world and our environment in several ways. They have a role to play not just in the everyday cleanliness of the homes and families they manage and run, but also the localities and communities they are a part of. The PMC has always supported SWaCH for several years and will continue to do so. These conversations are essential to make the system better”.
Rani Shivsharan, a member of SWaCH said that members are always encouraged and pushed to provide better services to the society and are always endeavoring to do so. “Our aim is to cover all of Pune and provide the best services. We do not have adequate sorting sheds and it would enhance fine segregation and ensure higher rates of recycling and keep us safe from the elements. While the Red Dot campaign gathers speed, it is essential to have spaces that we can keep such waste adequately segregated so it can be processed better. We do not have proper toilets, we do not have access to water and shade and on occasion adequate tools like gloves, masks etc. Support from the system would ease these problems and make it optimal.”
Javadekar took time to understand all the initiatives of SWaCH including its one-of- a kind MLP recycling and 3D printer filament making projects that enable better recycling and ensure better livelihoods to waste pickers in the city. He also assured the waste pickers that he will keep such dialogues open in the future as well.
Also present on the occasion were Vasanti Jadhav , Corporator, Harshala Jadhav, Corporator, and Monica Mohol .
