Metropolitan e-waste project wins CSR award

Metropolitan’s flagship corporate social responsibility project, Eco office – aimed at reducing electronic waste pile up in workplaces - was awarded Best CSR Special Projects award at the Ceylon Chamber’s Best Corporate Citizen night held last week.

The award which was presented by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce by Minister of Power and Energy, Patali Champika Ranawaka, was awarded for Metropolitan’s efforts at addressing the concern of redundant office equipment piling up in office dumps and storerooms, thus posing a serious risk to environment.

Metropolitan’s electronic waste management project which started in September 2010, focus on collecting workplace related electronic waste. Electronic waste is any electronic item that has become obsolete over time. They include items such as typewriters, computers, CRT monitors, printers, fax machines, copiers, cameras, calculators, scanners and even consumables such as toners and cartridges fall under this category

 “This project was initiated to provide a solution to the electronic waste problem and to create public awareness of dangers caused by unmanaged disposing of electronic waste, thereby greener environments, safer, healthier and productive workplaces and efficient resource usage” said Ms. Chamintha Thilakarathna Group Corporate Communications and CSR Manager at Metropolitan Group.

Since then, large amounts of electronic waste has been collected by Metropolitan through numerous activities such as public waste collection days and customer awareness programs.

Over the last few decades Sri Lanka’s workplaces have seen an influx of machinery that has replaced large quantities of equipment that are fast becoming obsolete in the midst of the speedy technological advancements. While life spans of equipment have become shorter, the products piling up in store rooms and office dumps have increased.

 “We had two main challenges in implementing this project. One was the lack of awareness on the dangers of electronic waste management amongst the public. The other was the state and private sector procedures in releasing redundant equipment for proper disposal and subsequent recycling,” said Taslim Rahaman, Director/CEO- Regions of Metropolitan Office Pvt Ltd..

These challenges have been overcome with the assistance of the CEA through awareness creation on the need for disposing electronic waste in a safe manner and through awareness on the Government’s national e waste management mandate.

The public can hand over their e waste at select strategic locations of our Metropolitan branches and companies can send us an email with information on their e waste, and Metropolitan will make suitable arrangements to collect them.

In the first eight months of the project more than 20 tons of electronic waste has been collected and sent for disposal and recycling by the Metropolitan Group’s flagship CSR project – the Electronic Waste Management Project, which leads the workplace e waste management of the national E Waste program set up by the Central Environment Authority.

The e waste once collected is sent for sorting and recycling by GreenLink Pvt Ltd, which is an authorized company approved by the Central Environment Authority and by the UN BASEL Convention.