Community and corporate views

Some top corporates, selected randomly, were posed this question by The Sunday Times FT:

“Colombo and other urban cities in Sri Lanka are facing a severe problem due to garbage and solid waste management which can lead to many social and health problems. There are suggestions that the large companies should help the authorities in this sector as part of CSR. Is your company involved in solid waste management vis-à-vis the community?”

This is what some of them had to say:

Hemas Holdings: The company has launched a project to make the Sigiriya area a “polythene and garbage free zone”

MJF Group: The MJF Charitable Foundation did a project with the Negombo Mayor to assist in cleaning up Negombo for tourism, and supported them with large commercial bins - approximately 70 units - to be placed around Negombo as part of a public awareness campaign on the importance of proper waste management.

Caltex Lubricants Ltd: “We have a formal policy on this which we apply together with all our channel partners. A considerable amount of money is invested on education, physical engagement, awareness campaigns both at school, society and country level.”

There were suggestions from members of the community and academics on how organizations can help to solve the garbage problem. One suggestion was for supermarkets to act as collection centres for items such as glass bottles where the consumers are encouraged to return all empty bottles to the supermarkets, not just when they are purchasing a new bottle. Another suggestion is to provide facilities to discard items such as the cardboard boxes from milk powder packets which serve no purpose other than for display and will be discarded. Collection from one point is easier than collecting from many households and a method such as this will automatically sort the material as well. Also, it was suggested that supermarkets give an incentive for consumers who use reusable bags.