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Saturday, 8 November 2014 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Centre for Sustainability (CFS) of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Sri Jayewardenepura (USJ) together with one of their program sponsors from the commercial sector, Piramal Glass Ceylon Plc conducted a comprehensive educational workshop for print, electronic and online media on waste management, eco-friendly packaging and environmental conservation recently at the university.
The media workshop was part of the ‘Be the Change’ initiative both the organisations launched a few weeks ago to drive public awareness on the importance of responsible waste management and disposal, usage of bio degradable packaging material, and environmental friendly lifestyle practices, with a focus of making Sri Lanka a ‘Greener and Cleaner’ place for the future.
Discussing about the background for this awareness program which has been specially tailor-made for media, USJ Department of Forestry and Environmental Science Head Prof. Nilanthi Bandara said, “As you may be aware, we launched a campaign under the theme ‘Be the Change’ a few weeks ago to create public awareness on their personal accountability towards environmental conservation and individual responsibility towards solid waste management. This program is an effort to share the most recent knowledge on these topics with media and gather their support towards creating public awareness for this pressing issue.”
According to CFS Coordinating Director/USJ Senior Lecturer of Forestry and Environmental Science Dr. Priyan Perera, the course has been designed encapsulating topics such as waste reduction, importance of bio degradable and environmental friendly packing material, domestic waste management, benefits of using healthy and non-contaminating packaging material that can be recycled, segmenting garbage before disposal, energy conservation and preservation methods etc.
The four-day program included educational workshops, interactive sessions, demonstrations, visits to environmental friendly manufacturing plants and land-fill areas. Among the resource panel that conducted the program were lecturers from universities, officers form the Central Environment Authority, representatives from non-governmental organisations, legal experts, researchers and media trainers.
The above program was sponsored by Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC and speaking about this sponsorship, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Sanjay Tiwari said, “As a company that engages in environmental friendly, responsible manufacturing practices, we saw a strategic fit for a partnership between our organisation and the centre for sustainability. Hence this partnership came to be as part of our company’s corporate responsibility agenda. We are planning to partner with the CFS for a few more practical, focused and value adding initiatives of similar nature in the future too.”
Piramal Glass isone of the biggest glass manufacturers in India and has acquired a majority share of Ceylon Glass Company in 1999. Piramal produces over 72,000 tonnes of glass bottles each year for the local and international marketsand out of this about 70% is for domestic consumption. It is clearly embedded in the vision of Piramal Sri Lanka to engage in ‘continuous innovation for improvement of environmental friendly, robust manufacturing practices’. Therefore Piramal drives the 3R principles – reduce, recycleand re-invest across all of its manufacturing and business parameters. Reduction of energy consumption in the manufacturing process, the meticulous and controlled extraction of raw material from the environment, recycling of all possible glass packaging that the company can collect, effluent treatment, are some of the practices adopted under the 3R umbrella.
