Geocycle celebrates 10 years of excellence

Geocycle, the waste management arm of Holcim Lanka completes 10 years in the sustainable waste management field this month. Waste management arm of Holcim Lanka, the nation’s leading supplier of cement and related products and services, Geocycle is a waste specialist, whose core business is to provide environmental responsible waste management solutions to industries.

The technology that is used is backed by global leaders in the cement industry and has been in practice for over 30 years. This service was recognised and appreciated at the National Green Awards held recently, when Geocycle was awarded Gold under the waste management category.

Commemorating its 10th year celebrations, the company has announced its plans to host many events and activities, including an international conference for waste management ‘Towards waste free Sri Lanka’, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Renewable Energy and the Chamber of Commerce, which could be considered as the highlight of the celebrations.

In addition, an awards ceremony for past employees, a CEO’s Forum including a panel discussion with eminent professionals from the industry, along with plans to launch a solid waste management project for municipalities will be other major activities that will take place parallel to the celebrations.

By addressing many waste management challenges faced by the industrial community, Geocycle is proud to serve the country’s drive for development through its services. From its inception in Sri Lanka on 22 March 2003, Geocycle has disposed more than 300,000 Mt of waste volumes, waste that would unless otherwise have been a burden to the environment.

Having expanded its horizons gradually from non-hazardous wastes also include hazardous wastes, the company continues its drive to offer peace of mind to the industrial community ensuring that there will be no future environmental liabilities from the waste they generate.

Geocycle further extended its capacity for providing additional services to its customers such as collection and transportation, branded product disposal, analytical services, total services solutions and consultancy services recently.

Strengthening partnership

Having firmly ingrained their innovative concept with customised waste management solutions in an array of industries, the Geocycle customer network has expanded significantly over the years to encompass garment manufacturing, paint and solvent production, pharmaceutical, power generation, shoe manufacturing, steel and other metal manufacturing, agriculture, automotive, chemicals, furniture, petroleum, plantation, printing, and retailing, amounting to nearly 300 industries.

The approach to waste management when dealing with customers is a two-pronged approach of consultation and delivering solutions. This enables Geocycle to impart its expertise and technology to industrial customers, assisting them in overcoming constraints through professionally-managed solutions as directed by the relevant environmental standards.  

Co-processing, the technology Geocycle utilises to dispose hazardous waste is superiors to land-filling and incineration. Different types of wastes have been successfully co-processed with positive results in many parts of the world such as Europe, Japan, USA, Canada and Australia for last three decades.

It is recognised and encouraged by international institutions such as World Health Organization (WHO), Stockholm Convention and Basel Convention, as it leaves no future environmental liabilities.

More importantly co-processing is considered as a sustainable waste disposal solution which is more suitable for developing countries as it utilises existing facilities, whereas huge investments and maintenance costs are involved in solutions such as incinerations and lad fillings.    

Only EPL to co-process hazardous wastes

The greatest achievement for Geocycle is to obtain the one and only Environmental Protection License (EPL) in Sri Lanka to co-process hazardous waste, from the Provincial Environmental Authority of North Western Province.

This is not an accomplishment of one single business unit, but also an achievement of an entire country, as it enables industries to dispose hazardous waste in environmentally responsible manner and regulatory bodies to enforce the law.

Geocycle also possesses EPL for hazardous waste collection, transportation, storing and pre-processing from the Central Environmental Authority.

Further, Geocycle has obtained international certificates, to provide standardised processes and systems to ensure continuous improvement of the performance and continuous satisfaction of both internal and external stakeholders, such as ISO 9001 ensuring excellent customer service quality, ISO 14001 ensuring protection of the environment OSHAS 18001 ensuring protection of health and safety of our own employees and community, ISO 17025 ensuring accuracy of analytical testing.

Establishing a mindset for ‘environmental waste responsible waste management’ within the Sri Lankan business community up to a considerable extent, is the greatest achievement, where very less industries were managing waste in environmentally responsible manner at the early stages.

Further, the strategic alliance developed by Holcim Group and GiZ drafted the first technical guidelines for co-processing, which was adopted by Basel Convention during annual summit held in Colombia in 2011.

Geocycle, the global brand for waste management in the Holcim Group, plays a significant role towards meeting Holcim’s sustainable development objectives. Holcim has its own sustainable objectives and plans to drive the zero-harm policy towards employees, their families, and the community and continuation of unabated environment, ensuring a positive contribution towards the collective wellbeing of the planet.

Geocycle represents around the globe for more than 35 countries contributes immensely to sustainable development by addressing waste issues in local regions. A widespread network around the globe helps Geocycle entities to exchange technology, expertise, experiences and exposure.

Geo Responsibility Awards

Geocycle being the professional waste management solutions provider had a very close eye on thee top environmental performers, as most of them are Geocycle customers. Stepping into Geocycle marketing platform is a good indication that particular industries have some concerns not to leave future environmental liabilities from the waste they generate.

This is a crucial move in the context that environmental responsible waste disposal is yet to establish because free dumping and irresponsible waste disposal has become most preferred method of disposing wastes all over the country.

Hence these top environmental performers diverse recognition and appreciation and this is the concept behind designing ‘Geo Responsibility Awards’. The name is itself indicates that ‘being responsible for earth’, by not dumping waste in an unplanned manner.   Creating further inroads into the total solutions concept for waste management and adhering strictly to waste management hierarchy, Geocycle signed MOUs with waste management partners who provide other waste management solutions for wastes such as plastics, metal, glass and electronic wastes.

Geocycle is happy and proud of what it has achieved over the years. Yet it sees further improvement potential awaiting realisation and will continue to lead the sustainable development of Sri Lanka with transparency, accountability, ethics, values and governance, because tomorrow matters.