Sri Lanka recycles 30 percent waste plastic and waste washing up on shores into fabric and brushes
Sri Lanka is reportedly re-cycling 30 percent of its waste plastic including waste washing up on its shores into fabric and brushes opening up a multi-million dollar business.
Trischel Fabric (Pvt.) Ltd, which is a fully owned subsidiary of Sri Lanka’s MAS Holdings, had reportedly produced 4,500 meters of fabric with yarn made of waste plastic bottles, including those collected from Sri Lanka’s beaches.
It is in this backdrop that Sri Lanka cricket team’s World Cup jersey in May 2019 was made with recycled yarn produced by Eco Spindles (Pvt) Ltd, which is a unit of Sri Lanka’s BPPL group.
“The interesting thing is if you actually look at what we produced a year today, if you convert that into bottles, it’s 54 million bottles,” Chief Executive Officer at MAS Trischel, Dhanushka Fernando been quoted as saying recently at a forum organised by Sri Lanka’s American Chamber of Commerce.
MAS Holdings, a maker of intimate, sports and swimwear had launched an initiative collaborating with the Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka Cricket and Eco Spindles (Ltd), a unit of Sri Lanka’s BPPL group to collect beach plastic.
“Looking at plastic, Sri Lanka has a tacklable problem,” MAS Kreeda Chief Executive and Managing Director Sarinda Unamboowe has said.
Sri Lanka is already recycling about 30 percent of its plastic water.
“We (Sri Lanka) import 1500 metric tons of plastic polymer a month and 30 percent of that is re-exported and 680 ton finds its way into the landfills,” General Manager at MAS Active, Nimesh Amalean has noted.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka gives much prominence to eco sensitive business practices and as stated in the news report above, some private sector establishments have found innovative methods of converting waste in to money generating ventures. Waste disposal has posed a challenge to Sri Lanka and the authorities are constantly on the lookout for innovative methods to address the issue. Therefore Sri Lanka’s waste disposal issues have created a business/investment opportunity for foreign businesses engaged in such activities.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20191118/Z_1 |