Manufacturing waste and its disposal is one of the biggest environmental challenges across the globe. In India, landfilling continues to be a major cause of environmental problems and health hazards. With the pace at which India is developing or aims to, the problem of managing this waste efficiently has increased manifold.
In order to tackle this, the government of India has introduced many guidelines for managing solid waste. The onus of managing the manufacturing waste as per these guidelines has been laid on the producers of the waste. It is thus important for all the producers to take up the responsibility of the waste they generate.
STL has taken an initiative to address these rising concerns by making efforts to drastically reduce waste by having extensive recycling programs. Across its facilities, by-products generated are also being increasingly repurposed for industries that can further use them as inputs for their manufacturing processes.
For this, STL has been awarded a ‘Zero Waste to Landfill’ Certification by Intertek (US), a leading Total Quality Assurance provider to industries worldwide. With this accreditation, the company’s manufacturing plants in India – Rakholi and Dadra, Silvassa and Shendra, Aurangabad have become the world’s first integrated Optical Fibre Cables, Speciality Cables, and Optical Fibre manufacturing facilities to win the international certification.
These sustainability initiatives have also ensured proactive action towards global issues like water management and climate change. Waste unique to the industry was diverted by using waste to energy (WTE) technology. Moreover, to ensure zero waste goes to landfills at each of these units, the organization has trained and spread awareness around effective waste management amongst its employees and the larger community around its facilities.
Commenting on the achievement, Akanksha Sharma, Head-Sustainability and CSR, STL said, “Sustainability is core to us at STL and a strong part of our integrated ESG framework. With a vision to ensure 100 per cent waste reduction and reuse, we have been efficiently working towards managing waste and also bring innovation into practice through a circular economy. The Zero Waste to Landfill programme has encouraged us to continuously work towards improving our processes, both up and downstream. It is our endeavour to drive responsible business practises across the value chain and we are committed towards this.”
