Every city, every ward is echoing the mantra of #RRR. Urban India is adopting the manta of 3R for transforming Waste to Wealth. Launched by the Union Minister, Shri Hardeep S. Puri on 15th May, 2023, ‘Meri LiFE, Mera Swachh Shehar’ campaign gained momentum as Cities pushed for sustainability and better LiFE. The nationwide campaign aims to nudge cities to set up RRR Centres, one stop collection centres, for citizens to contribute clothes, shoes, old books, toys and used plastic to be reused or recycled.
The Goodwill or Impact Centres in the west have been the central hub for sustainability initiatives. From recycling electronic items, clothes, old books, shoes to upscaling used items the goodwill centres paved way for sustainability in the urban world. Both donating to Goodwill and buying used clothes and other items help to keep these goods from going to landfills. Keeping in line with the Goodwill Centres, Indian urban sanitation ecosystem moves towards Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Centres or the RRR Centres.
7000 RRR Centres have been launched across the country so far, as lakhs of citizens participate in mega collection drives to deposit old, unused goods. From door-to-door collection with RRR on wheels to creatively setting up an RRR Centre with recycled goods, from innovative methods to disseminate information on RRR Centres to brand ambassadors participating in collection drives, the cities have ramped up their RRR initiatives. The newly opened RRR Centres in Agra, Rewa, Indore are not just attracting enthusiastic crowd eager to deposit unused goods, old books, shoes, clothes toys, but are also capturing the essence of jan andolan.
To promote its citizens, while the RRR Centre set up in Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa put together a brilliant idea of not only asking citizens to deposit old, unused goods but also set up a counter for people who need these old books, clothes shoes to come and collect it; Dewas flagged off RRR on Wheels – collection vans for citizens to donate old toys, books, electronic items, clothes & other reusable items. Some cities are using collection vans to create awareness, while others have created animations to disseminate the message of RRR. Some cities of Telangana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Tripura have also geo-tagged their RRR Centres to guide contributors to the nearest centre for collection. Various wards have been showcasing enthusiasm to promote the RRR Centres and have started depositing unused items from citizines. To push the collection drives, cities are planning to launch multiple RRR Centres across wards. 20th May, 2023 onwards, while Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has planned 67 RRR Centres, Chandigarh has initiatied plans for 35 RRR Centres. While Tripura finalised 17 locations for RRR Centres, Karnataka will be launching 170 RRR Centres during the campaign period and Mizoram is setting up 19 RRR Centres and are using educational videos to spread awareness regarding ‘Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle’. Within the next 15 days Telangana plans to open 1600 RRR Centres and 400 RRR on Wheels.
Championing the 3Rs of waste, Kanpur reused old plant pots to store water for animals and birds to quench their thirst at their RRR Centre. Indore not only set up a beatiful RRR Cente, but it also also turned into a hub for children to come and play with toys or read books.
Capturing the essence of RRR, the young champions of Tamil Nadu went door-to-door educating people about RRR Centres, while Bhopal launched an eco-friendly Green RRR Centre right, in the middle of the park. Contributing to the creative initiatives, Uttarakhand’s Joshimath created chairs, tables and dustbins made out of recycle plastic waste to set up their RRR Centre.
The passion for Swachhata coupled with the conscious effort of conserving the resources is clearly visible on ground has cities launch RRR Centres and conduct large scale collection drives under Meri LiFE, Mera Swachh Shehar.