For the past two years, Sahakari Bhandar, as part of its ‘go green’ initiative, has been encouraging customers to bring their used/empty cartons of milk, juices and other items and deposit them at a collection box in the store.

Sahakari Bhandar sends the cartons for recycling - separating the paper content of the box from the aluminium and plastic. As an incentive for the customers to continue bringing the used cartons, the store gives them gifts such as notebooks, bookmarks and diaries made out of recycled paper.

“I live alone in Mumbai and rely on Tetra Pak cartons to stock my kitchen. It’s a good initiative. I got a nice bookmark in return for the cartons I gave to the store,” Bhushan Bopardikar, a resident of Sion, said.

Sahakari Bhandar started the initiative in in 2010 as part of its ‘go green’ initiative along with NGO Are you Reducing, Reusing, Recycling? (RUR), Daman Ganga Recycled Resources and food processing and packaging company Tetra Pak.

The activity is carried out in Sahakari Bhandar’s 18 stores in the city, including those in Prabhadevi, Chembur, Bandra, Colaba, Borivali and Matunga. Till date, the organisation has collected around two lakh empty cartons and recycled them. The amount of the recycled Tetra Pak boxes is equivalent to saving over 20 trees, said Vinay Adhye, vice president and business head, Sahakari Bhandar. On an average, recycling of 1.5 tonnes of Tetra Pak cartons helps save 17 trees, said Adhye.

The cooperative has also donated 23 desks, which Daman Ganga made using the recycled cartons, to Swadeshi Marathi Shala, a local school. “One of every five Tetra Pak packages sold at our stores is brought back for recycling by our customers. The success of the collection drive has strengthened our belief that many people are committed towards recycling,” he added.

Sahakari Bhandar has plans to intensify the recycling drive and aims at collecting four lakh cartons this year, double the amount collected in the past two years.