HNB partners with IFS & Eco Spindles for waste plastic bottle recycling campaign

Sri Lanka’s most innovative private sector bank, HNB PLC partnered with the multinational enterprise software company IFS Sri Lanka and pioneering manufacturer of monofilaments and yarn, Eco- Spindles (Private) Limited to launch a resourceful recycling campaign for PET bottles across the Colombo District.

HNB Managing Director/CEO, Jonathan Alles, IFS Regional President, Stephen Keys, Eco-Spindles Managing Director/CEO, Dr. Anush Amarasinghe and Father Rector of St. Joseph’s College, Rev. Fr. Ranjith Andradi were present at a special ceremony held to launch this initiative on September 4, 2019 at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo 10.

“Recycling and managing our waste is the only solution to ensure a greener and sustainable Sri Lanka for future generations. Especially, as recent studies found that each household in the Colombo generated about 3 Kg of PET waste each year. As a bank whose foundation is built on sustainability and green energy we are thrilled to be a part of an awareness and recycling programme with a long term goal to ensure all PET bottles imported and manufactured in Sri Lanka are responsibly recycled,” HNB Managing Director/CEO, Jonathan Alles said.

The first phase of the campaign will focus on the distribution of 50 PET bottle collection bins across HNB’s school unit network in the Colombo district. The leading private sector bank also committed to raising awareness among staff, customers and network partners on sustainability and the importance of recycling.

“Recycling is no longer a choice but an absolute necessity if we are to protect the environment for future generations. Through this vital collaboration with IFS Sri Lanka and HNB – a long term supporter and investor of sustainability and green energy – we hope to make a substantial change in the mind-set of the population at large as the project focuses on inculcating the habit of recycling amongst the younger generations through numerous interactive awareness programmes,” Eco-Spindles Managing Director/CEO, Dr. Anush Amarasinghe said.

Eco Spindles will purchase PET bottles collected at a nominal fee that will help to incentivize collection and encourage the habit of recycling. Thereafter, Eco Spindles has committed to facilitating transportation for the collected bottles to their recycling plants, following which the recycled plastic will be converted into monofilaments for brushes and yarn for fabric manufacturers worldwide.

“IFS is delighted to participate in this programme, which supports the business interests of longstanding IFS customer and Eco-Spindles parent company BPPL Holdings” said Stephen Keys, Regional President, IFS. “In this way we contribute to environmentally sustainable business, while raising public awareness. This is consistent with our commitment to performance with purpose”.

IFS develops and delivers enterprise software for customers around the world who manufacture and distribute goods, build and maintain assets, and manage service- focused operations. Powered by the extensive industry expertise of its people and solutions, together with a commitment to delivering value to every customer, IFS is a recognized leader and the most recommended supplier in the industry.

The company’s team of 3,700 employees and growing ecosystem of partners support more than 10,000 customers around the world challenge the status quo and realize their competitive advantage. It has maintained a presence in Sri Lanka for 22 years with 1/3 of the global IFS workforce based in Colombo, covering vital R&D, global support, delivery as well as sales and marketing to service the needs of local customers.

IFS Sri Lanka is a part of the multinational enterprise software company IFS based in Linköping, Sweden. A fully-fledged marketing, sales, consulting and support entity ready to carter to the end-to-end needs of its clients. The Sri Lankan Sales and Marketing arm is tightly integrated with IFS’s largest R&D centre outside its home in Sweden and is also home to IFS’s global support and training centre.

Eco- Spindles (Private) Limited, a subsidiary of BPPL Holdings PLC, is a pioneer in manufacturing top quality monofilaments for cleaning tools and yarn for fabric manufacturers worldwide. Driven by energy-efficient and sustainable technologies, the company’s synthetic yarn production facility is a first for Sri Lanka. The plant is one of two established globally, capable of exclusively producing yarn from recycled PET flakes. Eco Spindles also manufactures a comprehensive range of monofilament products using recycled PET and other plastic materials to produce filaments for the Group’s own brushware requirements and those of other global brush manufacturers.

Operating through 251 customer centres across the country, HNB is one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most innovative banks, having won recognition from numerous international and local institutions for its achievement of excellence in diverse fields. HNB was also the first Sri Lankan bank to obtain an international credit rating and was assigned a foreign currency issuer rating of B1 on par with the sovereign rating by Moody’s Investors Service, while it has a national long term rating of AA- (lka) by Fitch Ratings (Lanka) Ltd.