Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has termed its “Big Drop” — an initiative to collect electronic waste — a great success and said about four metric tonnes of such waste was collected on a single day.
“A total of 3,840kilos of electronic waste – 3.84 metric tonnes – was left during the first event, far higher than expected by organisers,” said a Qtel spokesman.
The event, organised on Saturday, provided the community with a facility to dispose of large e-waste items for recycling.
Qtel provided a number of special recycling bins for people to leave their e-waste in the car park of Landmark Mall in Doha, and in two shifts – one in the afternoon and one in the evening – so that people could drop off material at the time that best suited them.
Among the most popular items left for recycling were old computer monitors and printers – more than 120 monitors were deposited during the day. Equally, a high number of old computers and batteries were submitted for recycling.
These electronic goods contain plastics and heavy metals that could damage the environment if they were left in land-fill dumps. With the Big Drop programme, they will be shipped to a Basel Convention Certified recycling facility in Singapore and safely repurposed.
Volunteers also collected rice cookers, water dispensers, vacuum cleaners and large iron pots among the items left for recycling.
“Members of the public enthusiastically participated in the programme, and were joined by a number of major Qatari companies, who recycled office equipment through the Big Drop programme,” said the spokesman.
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