BANGALORE: The industry often accused of generating "e-waste" is doing something positive for its environment.

The Electronics City Industries Association (ELCIA) in association with Saahas, part of the task force set up by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, and students of the technical training institute NTTF, is launching a programme on Wednesday.

The aim is to make the industrial area more waste-sensitive and plastic-free. ELCIA has 120 member industries.

Most of the resident trainees at NTTF and volunteers from ELCIA and Saahas are planning to make a sustained effort go beyond a mere campaign. To achieve this, the volunteers will work in three groups with identified activities, which will be rotated among them.

The first activity will be to clean up Electronics City, with volunteers picking up waste and actually cleaning the sidewalks, stormwater drains, roads and vacant plots. The second group will interact with hawkers, visitors, staff and employees of member industries to inform them about the waste-sensitive programme. Bumper stickers, posters and bookmarks will be distributed. Cloth bags will be sold to discourage the use of plastic carry bags.

The third group will interact with industries, vendors and scrap dealers to get information about the types of waste generated, the quantities involved and the waste collection and disposal systems. Saahas will come out with a questionnaire, which the volunteers will use. The data collected will be used in a waste study and track waste generation and disposal in the industrial area as a whole.

The implementation part of the programme will include a waste audit conducted over two weeks and visits to individual industries/offices and eventually, a waste management strategy for each unit.

Subsequently, the industries will conduct their own audits. ELCIA hopes the experience can be shared with other cities too as a workable model.

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