Ceylinco Life’s Green Club stops 1.7 MT of e-waste entering landfill

Ceylinco Life Chairman R. Renganathan (second left), Managing Director/CEO Thushara Ranasinghe (extreme left) and directors Palitha Jayawardena and Ranga Abeynayake (third and fourth from left) participating in the e-waste collection initiative

Ceylinco Life’s ‘E-waste Collection Day’ efforts for 2021 culminated in the prevention of 745 kilograms of electronic waste being dumped in landfills; the equivalent of stopping 7,200 lbs. of carbon from entering the atmosphere or saving 235 trees.

This took the cumulative figure for e-waste diverted from landfill by the company over the past two years alone to a significant 1.7 metric tons.

The E-waste Collection Day is an initiative spearheaded by the life insurance leader’s Green Club. Members of the Club collected abandoned and malfunctioning electronic equipment from the company’s employees at all levels that report to the Head Office. Uncollected, this potentially toxic electronic waste may have been disposed of haphazardly and been harmful to the planet. 

Among the discarded devices collected from Ceylinco Life offices and homes of employees were items of electronic equipment such as printers, personal computers and parts, laptops, networking equipment, scanners, mobile phones, CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, UPS units, video cameras, pocket and desk calculators, telephones, video games, electronic components and multiple types of batteries including Lead, Nickel, and Cadmium batteries, telecommunication and server batteries. 

Commenting on this event, Ceylinco Life’s Green Club President Tilan Wijesinghe said: “Good habits are formed through repetition. By holding annual events and consistently creating awareness about environmental conservation and how individual actions can make a difference, we hope to promote environmental consciousness not just among the Ceylinco Life employees, but in the communities, they live in, with the hope that it will become a habit that will benefit our planet in the long run.” 

Upon collection over several days during the year, the electronic waste was handed over to a reputed company that specialises in recycling these items. Before the E-waste Collection Day that took place members of the Club also created awareness among employees about the adverse effects of electronic waste that is disposed of in the environment. 

The Green Club of Ceylinco Life was formed in 2020 by a group of volunteers with the objectives of creating an understanding about the environment and environmental challenges among all employees, developing the necessary skills and expertise to address the challenges faced by the environment, creating a culture that takes responsible action related to the environment, and encouraging employee participation in activities to create a ripple effect in their families and communities towards forming sustainable societies. In its year of inauguration, the Club collected and responsibly recycled 990 kilograms of electronic waste.

Besides disposing its own electronic waste in a responsible manner, Ceylinco Life has also implemented a recycling plan for its wastepaper. In 2021, the company collected 21,297 kilograms of wastepaper and handed it to Neptune Recyclers which provides waste management solutions for offices and commercial industries, for shredding and recycling. Neptune Recyclers certified, that by doing so, Ceylinco Life had conserved 362 fully-grown trees, 37,376 litres of oil, 85,188 kilowatts of electricity, 676,819 litres of water, 64 cubic metres of landfill, and had reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 21,297 kgs of carbon equivalent.  

Committed to enterprise-wide sustainability, Ceylinco Life is in the process of building a network of Green branches on company-owned land. These new buildings are solar-powered; have rainwater harvesting facilities and waste water recycling systems that minimise the use of pipe-borne water, are designed for optimal use of natural light and are equipped with the latest energy-efficient lighting and air conditioning systems.

In 2020, the company commissioned two large solar panel installations in Anuradhapura and Jaffna which are believed to be the largest in those cities, with a cumulative capacity to generate 120 MWh per year and further reduce the company’s carbon footprint by 42.6 tons.