HCCB commemorates 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi with a country-wide cleanliness drive

by Suman Gupta

–          1000 volunteers participated

–          3000 kgs of waste collected

–          Planned as part of HCCB’s World Without Waste program that aims at collecting and recycling all types of plastic waste

Bengaluru, October, 2019: More than 1000 volunteers of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB) – one of India’s largest FMCG companies, participated in the country-wide cleanliness campaign to commemorate the 150^th Birth Anniversary of the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. The week-long community-led initiative is part of the company’s global initiative of World Without Waste, a programme that among other things aims at collecting and recycling all types of plastic waste. Launched across 18 locations, the programme was designed to support the Government of India’s ‘Swachhta Hi Seva’ initiative to promote cleanliness in the country.

Consisting of the company employees, gram panchayat members, local school children, government officials, and representatives of different social organisations, the volunteers participated in the swachhata rally to create awareness and conducted door to door collection of waste in their respective communities across 18 factory locations of HCCB. HCCB also distributed waste collection bins and cleaning and safety equipment among the village clean guards and felicitated them to reward and recognise their contributions and dignity of labour.

Awareness sessions on effective waste management solutions and education camps on waste segregation, waste disposal, recycling of plastic waste were other initiatives that evoked enthusiastic participation. The volunteers also organised several drawing competitions for local school children to create awareness on cleanliness.

Reflecting on the significance of the country-wide cleanliness drive, Mr. Umesh Malik, Vice-President, Public Affairs and Communication, HCCB,  said, “It was heartening indeed to see such an enthusiastic response from the community towards the cleanliness drive as  mark of respect to the father of our nation. At HCCB, we feel privileged to be part of the noble cause that is in complete alignment with our global initiative of promoting a world without waste. Going forward, we will continue to drive the campaign through public participation across the country. We remain committed to working towards creating a better tomorrow.”

As part of The Coca-Cola Company’s World Without Waste initiative and compliance under Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016, HCCB launched its Plastic Waste Collection & Recycling program in May 2018 in partnership with United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The project aims to manage more than 100,000 MT of plastic waste and to improve the socio-economic conditions of over 30,000 Safai Sathis (waste collectors). The project establishes Swachhta Kendras (Material Recovery Centres) by blending social and technical approaches with strong governance mechanisms, and it strives to institutionalise collaboration among citizens, communities, central and state pollution boards, urban and environment departments, related stakeholders to find sustainable solutions for plastic waste. Launched in 20 cities already, the project shall be extended to 50 cities by 2020.

About HCCB: HCCB is one of India’s largest FMCG companies. It manufactures, packages and sells, some of India’s most loved beverages – Minute Maid, Maaza, SmartWater, Kinley, Thums Up, Sprite, Coca-Cola, Limca, Fanta, Georgia and several others. A network of 3,900 distributors, 250,000 farmers, 7,000 suppliers and over 2.5 million retail outlets, makes HCCB, an ecosystem of significant scale. It operates in 25 states in 493 districts. Through its 18 factories, HCCB manufactures and sells 60 different products in 9 different categories.