How Chennai residents can convert Tetra Pak cartons into furniture for school kids | The News Minute

The Waste Solutions Company in Chennai has placed 20 trash bins across the city to collect used Tetra Pak cartons, which are recycled into functional products.

If you live in Chennai and have used milk, juice and other beverages in Tetra Pak cartons, you can now recycle the cartons to the furniture of public school students. "Take Me Back" is a year-long event initiated by Chennai-based Wasted Solutions with the aim of keeping Tetra Pak's waste out of Chennai's excessive landfills. The purpose of the social enterprise is to collect the largest number of cartons and recycle them as functional products for the community. 

"During the lockdown, more people may store juice and milk cartons because no one wants to come forward or come in contact with people. What people don't realize is that these cartons are easy to recycle and do not need to go to urban landfills. We launched the “Bring Me Back” campaign to promote isolation from the source and raise awareness of recycling.” said Ann Anra, founder and creative director of Wasted. 

Tetra Pak cartons are mainly made of paper. Approximately 75% of the packaging is made of cardboard, 20% is made of polyethylene, and 5% is made of aluminum. "If you throw away these cartons instead of recycling, it would be a criminal waste of useful resources. The plastic and aluminum in cartons will also take years to decompose." An explained. 

In order to solve this problem, Ann and her team set up 20 trash cans in drop-off centers throughout Chennai. Here, city dwellers can put down the clean and flattened Tetra Pak. Use heat and pressure to chop and compress the entire carton together with the bottle cap/straw to convert it into a checkerboard-like sheet. This process is a zero waste process. Then, these sheets are converted into many useful things, such as furniture, table top items, auto rickshaw seats, etc. 

From Annanagar to OMR, waste bins are distributed in 20 centers (mainly supermarkets), covering the Grand Chennai Company (GCC) area. They will stay in these centers for a year so that residents can often discard used cartons. To facilitate pickup, the event is bundled with delivery service provider Dunzo, who will send its partners to collect and drop cartons at storage points. 

"If you collect too many cartons, you can ask the Dunzo agent to pick them up and place them in the nearest trash can. You can go to our 

 And request pick-up. Ann added. 

"We launched a similar event in Mumbai in 2010, where we had 210 drop-off points to drop Tetra Pak cartons. After the event was successful, we came to Chennai with "Take Me Back"." Tetra Pak South Asia Said Jaideep Gokhale, vice president of sustainable development. Multinational companies’ food packaging and processing have invested in these activities as part of their extended producer responsibility (EPR) program. 

Waste Solutions worked with the Arpanam Trust, another urban NGO, and also trained volunteers who lived in the slum clearance committee members of Tamil Nadu in Mbacam, Peru, who were affected during the lockdown and handled in the right way Carton.

"In order to advance our movement, we hope to interact with schools and college students, and hope that institutions or individuals can contact us through our website," Ann shared. 

According to data from the solid waste department of the Chennai Company, Chennai generates nearly 3,200 tons of garbage every day. All of this is dumped in the two main landfills in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi, which are flooded with waste. 

Bringing me back will help remove the recyclable Tetra Pak waste from these landfills and give back to the community. To learn more about the program and the various deposit points, please visit: 

©2021 News Minutes