SET's zero waste campaign under the Care the Whale project has created the collaborative area to promote household and community waste management with the pilot campaign called the 'Zero Waste' Station@ Bang Kachao River Bend launched in 2021 in six communities around the Bang Kachao River Bend area in Samut Prakan province near Bangkok. This year, the campaign is further expanded to embrace more partners in Circular Economy and healthcare, expand the collected wastes to the glass bottles and reach out to the youth with the common goal to reduce global warming, create a mechanism to ease the cost of living and promote healthy living for the community dwellers.
Wat Chak Daeng Abbot Phra Rachwatcharabunchid (Pranom Thammalangkaro) said that the temple has become a learning center of waste management for the communities situated along this bend of the Chao Phraya River. The campaign last year played an important role in supporting environmental management and helping the community dwellers by enabling them to redeem their garbage for consumer products sponsored by the partner from the private sector and the wastes were recycled as school building materials, and Tripitaka which is a way to promote circular economy. This year will extend outcome to awareness-raising among local people in the community to foster waste segregation behavior and make them realize about value of waste which can be processed or recycled.
SET President Pakorn Peetathawatchai said that SET aims to enhance economic, social, and environmental sustainability for the benefit of all sectors in line with the vision 'To Make the Capital Market Work for Everyone' and environmental management based on the Circular Economy principle. Apart from the new partners, the campaign will focus on encouraging entrepreneurs, shops, Tambon Administrative Organization, schools to sort waste, especially the knowledge and practical implementation of systematic waste management among youth. Furthermore, SET has also provided the Climate Care Platform tools to the station in order to calculate reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent as well as the comparison of waste sorting and tree planting, to produce concrete results on a continuous basis.
Vice Chair, Executive Board, SPC, Pasook Raksawonkse said that the company's participation last year was part of the company's commitment to help better the communities' and consumers' quality of life, and promote the environmental conservation. This year, the company, under this campaign, expands the sponsorship to provide more consumer products in exchange for waste items to cover local business entrepreneurs, in addition to the community dwellers. Moreover, SPC plans to be the core organization to educate 1,000 local youths in 11 schools around the Bang Kachao River Bend area about the benefit of waste management and sorting process to instill environmental awareness."
Head of Corporate Communication and CSR, OSOTSPA, Sutida Siamharn said with the company's vision of "The Power to Enhance Life." OSP focuses on the resource management that can reduce the impact to the environment based on circular economy's principles and in line with the campaign. Therefore, the company plays a part in this year's project by setting up drop-off points at the temple for the community members to bring along and drop their glass bottles. The company will then recycle them into new products and will return the recycled products to the community around the Chak Daeng temple to be used internally or
for the benefit of the community in various events. Moreover, OSP will coordinate with the recycling companies in the community to recycle these bottles and contribute a certain amount of money to the temple in appreciation of the personnel who have put efforts in this project. In addition, the company has also created a video clip on the journey of the bottles and the guideline of waste segregation for recycling, aiming to tell the know-how and build the understanding so that the community will be a part of the synergy to protect the environment altogether.
Principal Capital Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer Tanee Maneenut said that Princ Hospital Suvarnabhumi has joined this year's 'Zero Waste' project, in line with the company's goal to become a Sustainable Hospital within 2023. The community dwellers can turn waste items into medical items such as sanitary masks, alcohol-based sanitizer and basic herbal medicine, and the hospital has also donated 100 doses of vaccine to the temple for the benefit of the dwellers of the community in Samut Prakan province where is home to the hospital and to be in line with the determination to building the giver culture to assist people, community and society.
During September to December of 2021, the Care the Whale project's "Zero Waste" campaign managed to sort and recycle a total of 4,770 kilograms of waste from households and organizations, reducing 4,093.85 kilograms of CO2 equivalent. In 2022, the campaign is expected to gather 15,000 kilograms of recyclable wastes from the community dwellers and entrepreneurs around the Bang Kachao River Bend area. These items include garbage, plastic bottles, food bags, cloths and glass bottles which can be exchanged for certain consumer and healthcare products at Chak Daeng temple all year round.
Business and community sectors, and interested public are welcome to join a "Synergy of Major Community, Zero Waste x 2" seminar to be participated by Phra Methee Wachirasophon, Pasook of SPC, Tanee of Principle Capital, Sutida of OSP, and SET Senior Executive Vice President Soraphol Tulayasathien, with Sutiwas Hongpoonpipat as an MC, on June 15, 2022, at 19.00 hrs. via Facebook of 'Care the Whale', SET Social impact and SET Thailand.
Source: The Stock Exchange of Thailand