Sasta, sundar, tikau: This shop in Hyderabad recycles old items

Later, it sells these items at less than the market rate from a shop — ‘Sab Hi Sasta’ — and uses the money collected for community welfare.

Hyderabad: In a unique initiative at striking the right balance in environment sustainability through recycling and philanthropy, a voluntary organisation from Hyderabad collects unused electronic goods and other household items from houses and instead of discarding them, it repairs and even refurbishes them.

Later, it sells these items at less than the market rate from a shop — ‘Sab Hi Sasta’ — and uses the money collected for community welfare.

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The ‘Sab Hi Sasta’ outlet at Bandlaguda is run by the Hyderabad-based voluntary organisation Safa Baitul Maal and the items are sold for dead cheap.

At the store located on the road connecting Aramghar with Chandrayangutta, anyone can buy secondhand furniture, home furnishing, bedding, fitness equipment, electronics and even books. Abdul Azhar, vice president of Safa Baitul Maal, says the idea of setting up the store came after the charitable institution started collecting furniture and electronics lying unused in many households.

“Initially, we collected old newspapers and books. But families pestered us to take their other unused stuff too. We thought of collecting such articles, repairing them and selling them. The proceeds of the sales are used to take up welfare initiatives,” says Azhar.

Safa Baitul Maal (SBM) also runs a call centre to which people make a call and share the residential or office address details from where the articles have to be picked up.

An auto-rickshaw or van reaches the place and collects the items. “The articles are transported to our warehouse at Jalpally where it is segregated.

Electronic items that can be repaired are sent to the SBM workshop at Bandlaguda where 40 of our people work. Later, they are put for sale at the store,” he explains.

The SBM takes up many welfare schemes, including sponsoring education of orphans, pension for women and the differently abled and providing groceries to the needy