Kolkata – One of the remarkable new initiatives intended to manage and recycle electronic and electrical waste around the country is Hulladek - a Kolkata based startup which aims to manage e-waste on a pan India basis. Hulladek promises to collect every bit of e-waste you have on a single request throughout the city. “Even a single mouse,” says a Hulladek representative we met at an exhibition. Intrigued by this, we researched the company and discovered it was a professional initiative which follows the CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) recommended process to recycle e-waste.

Nandan Mall - Founder and CEO, Hulladek won last years' KGF Leadership award.

E-waste is now a widespread phenomenon and organisations that range from hospitality industry leaders such as The Oberoi Grand and The Park Hotels, to educational institutions such as St. Xavier’s College and Assembly of God Church School, Park Street, now avail of Hulladek’s services. To further boost a client’s confidence and make donating the waste more attractive, Hulladek doesn’t just collect the material - they are known for providing facilities like on-site and off-site data destruction along with PRO (Producer Responsibility Organisation) and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) certificates for their clients. What makes Hulladek stand out from your average traditional waste recycler is its commitment to provide a complete and sustainable solution to e-waste disposal situation. They want to ensure e-waste recycling in a safe and controlled atmosphere assuring zero health or environmental hazards and maximum recovery efficiency.

Hulladek's Mayank Khanna pitches for Hulladek at a green exhibition.

The Process: The first objective is to destroy any data that might be present in the equipments. This is done to address the issue of data leak/theft. Once the equipments are wiped off of all the data, dismantling happens, followed by shredding and granulating. Plastic, metal and glass are separated and sent to different industries to be reused and hazardous substances are stored separately and are treated in a controlled environment through an authorised industrial hazardous waste management company. Alternatively, Hulladek sells any working equipment to refurbishers for restoration and reuse.

Various Green Centres have been set up across the city to ease people in donating their e-waste conveniently. Hulladek collects all kinds of electronic/electrical items including broken, discarded, outdated or obsolete from various vendors across the spectrum. With authorised channel partners in all major cities in India they are achieving their objective of operating on a pan-India basis. As this story was being written, we thought we would try out their services, too. One of our Coordinators got in touch with the company, and a week (and one more follow up reminder) later, their collection workers visited our office to collect the two cartons of old hard disks, keyboards, SMPS and discarded electronic devices, we kept for them. We are currently waiting for a promised certificate citing our contribution…