Rajkot: For the last three years, Dr Tejas Doshi in Bhavnagar has been receiving rather strange items in couriers – lakhs of used writing pens.
However, the pens that were destined for trash and added to environment pollution, have been refilled and put back to use by students in Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan too. A social media campaign he had initiated in 2018 flooded him with nearly five lakh pens, of which over 90% have been refilled and distributed to students. Dumped pens as they cause considerable damage to the land and water both.
While those made from plastic are non-biodegradable, the ink, lead and other chemicals percolate into the soil and underground water.
“One day, while searching for something in my office, I was startled to see 118 used pens dumped in a corner. So, I decided to refill and distribute them among the needy students. I also put up a message on social media asking people to send me used and unused pens from their homes and offices,” the physician told TOI.
In the last three years, Dr Doshi has received 4.88 lakh such pens out of which he distributed 4.68 lakh to school children in Gujarat, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Bengaluru, Nashik, Udaipur, Delhi.
The campaign gathered such steam that he started receiving parcels of pens from Washington, Virginia and Australia too. As he started getting thousands of pens daily, students of scout joined him in the tedious process of refilling the pens and dispatching them to various schools. Teachers there took up the responsibility of distribution.
The cost of a refill is almost the same as a new pen and that’s why people prefer to buy a new one rather than refill. But a Mumbai-based company, which got to know about this campaign, volunteered to provide him with master refills that can be used in any pen for just 40 paisa each.
A voluntary organization – Shishu Vihar – also lent its helping hand by finding needy schools and students as well as manpower to refill the pens. Ajay Bhatt, who runs scout activity said, “Sixty students have joined the activity of refilling the used pens. We call the students in the group of 20 to 30 at some school and they prepare a bunch of 50 and 100 pens ready to use.”
In fact, a pen making company in Mumbai which had closed its business for a long time approached Dr Doshi and provided him 25,000 unused pens in their factory. Environment activist, Mahesh Pandya, said, “The ball pens which we dump has leads to pollution because they are make of plastic. The ink also contains some toxic chemicals. The more pens we throw, the more we have to produce and the cycle goes on.
Related Stories
December 13, 2021