S4S and Penlac team up on waste management |28 May 2018

‘Beat plastic pollution’ is this year’s theme for Environment Day on June 5. Sustainability for Seychelles (S4S) along with other NGOs are teaming up with the department of environment and business partners in the organisation of a wide range of activities aiming to encourage people to break free from the use of plastics, especially single-use plastic.

Over the years, through its various projects, S4S and its partners including Penlac Co Ltd, have been promoting the three Rs – Reduce, Re-use and Recycle - whatever is considered as waste, as a means of changing the ways we deal with waste. S4S therefore appreciates Penlac’s latest contribution of R20,000 of CSR funding towards its upcoming activities for Environment Day. As the CEO of Penlac said, “this CSR tax proceed is our way of giving back to society, in this case to help with the conservation and sustainability of the environment”.

These Environment Day activities will include discussions of the impact of plastic waste, the launch of a booklet on climate change and participation in a clean-up together with other NGOs.

Penlac may not be directly involved in plastic waste but it is contributing positively towards the local environment by being eco-friendly in a number of ways:

1. All of Penlac’s water-based paints are eco-friendly because they emit low VOCs or volatile organic compounds. This means they hardly smell when opened for use and the smell of paint does not linger for long. Hence, Penlac’s water-based paints are safe and can be applied on walls or other surfaces by even school children as have been the case in the company’s recent CSR donations to the La Retraite School, the Pointe Larue School, the Les Li Viv building and others.
2. The company has reduced its pollution footprint by reducing the amount of solid waste it produces; more liquid waste is being generated which go through a careful filtration process and which can then be safely disposed of by the relevant waste management authorities. 
3. Penlac prides itself on using a mix of solar energy and traditional fossil fuel (i.e oil & gas) energy from PUC to operate the heavy machinery in its factory. In generating solar energy from its 10.6kW solar panel system, Penlac has been saving around 33% on its total energy bill.
4. The company has a long-standing system of encouraging its customers to sell back their empty plastic containers to Penlac so that the containers can be recycled and re-used once thoroughly cleaned. However, in recent times, people have been using Penlac’s larger 20L plastic containers for other purposes such as for animal feed storage, for water collection etc. on farms and at residential homes. This is because they are strong and durable, just like the well-known Penlac paint products.

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest challenges of our time. Already it is known that there are some 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste in the world’s oceans. Currently around the world about one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. 500 billion disposable plastic bags are used worldwide every year. It is estimated that over 50% of the plastic we use is single use. In Seychelles, according to a 2016 study, about 33% of waste going to the landfill were plastic.

As it slowly disintegrates plastic also makes its way into the food chain, into our water supply and thus into our bodies. So, refuse it! And if you can’t refuse it, at least reuse it!