KUWAIT: Boubyan Bank has launched its campaign for collecting and recycling e-waste in a safe and sustainable manner, in collaboration with Tadwire; a specialized company in recycling e-waste. This comes as a part of Boubyan’s ongoing efforts to keep up with the most important international and regional developments in sustainability, and the impact thereof on ESG aspects.
Qutayba Al-Bassam, Executive Manager - Corporate Communications Division, stated: "The campaign focuses on the collection of all electronics such as severs and PCs (all desktops and laptops), and smart devices (all tablets, smart phones, and mobile phones), as well as white goods (A/Cs, fridges, stoves, and microwaves), brown goods (TVs, radios, CD players, cassette players, monitors, and printers), wires, cables, engines, and metals of all types and sizes, in addition to generators, lawn mowers, and other heavy equipment.”
"Collaboration with Tadwire comes as a leader in e-waste collection and recycling. Participation in this campaign will be open for all segments and age groups since this is a national initiative by Boubyan to join forces of the society to preserve the environment, protect the future of upcoming generations, and increase awareness so as to create a sustainable environment”, Al-Bassam emphasized.
As for participation in the campaign, he stated: "All Boubyan and non-Boubyan customers can participate in the campaign by directly contacting Tadwire’s professional team, who are responsible for the collection of waste, and who are well aware of how to deal safely with the same. They may be contacted by phone or WhatsApp at 55335055 or via their website: www.tadwire.comwhere participants can fill out the required information, or by sending an email to: info@tadwire.com
He went on to add: "Following submission of the application, a member of the team will be in touch with the participant to inform him of the acceptance of his request, and that he should collect all his electronic items to be ready for collection in as few boxes/bags as possible for ease of movement, while confirming the amount of waste, and its material so as to make the appropriate arrangement, in addition to ensuring the removal of any personal information from such equipment.”
A social message
Al-Bassam added: "Upon the launch of the campaign last October, the goal was to collect 3 tons of e-waste; however, as we are already halfway - only after a month and a half - we already exceeded this number by reaching more than 3.4 tons, thus saving more than 5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. In return, the bank will make a donation to a charitable organization to highlight the bank’s social, charitable, and environmental awareness message.” He went on to add: "Sustainable growth represents a main pillar in Boubyan Bank’s strategy, through which the bank focuses on adopting initiatives that aim at spreading social and environmental awareness about the importance of preserving the environment and protecting it from future risks arising from the increased rate of different types of waste.”
Al-Bassam elaborated: "Amid the technological advancement witnessed around the whole world, with the increased usage of digital devices that have become the main means of communication in the modern age, we now have an urgent need to dispose of such devices in a safe manner as per the best international environmental practices, owing to the hazards arising from the VOC emissions of some toxic materials used therein.”
Risks of e-waste
"E-Waste is one of the most hazardous pollutants that negatively affect the environment, since such non-functional and non-usable electronics are hard to dispose of, and not biodegradable, in addition to requiring more time and efforts to dispose of. They rather turn into a hazard due to their environmental and health risks since they contain toxic, flammable, or reactive components, and since most circuits in electronics comprise of heavy metals such as zinc and lead”, Al-Bassam elaborated.
On his part, the Managing Partner of Tadwire, Waleed Esbaitah, stated: "E-waste is marked by the highest growth in the world, and constitutes a hazard when dumped in a landfill, and this type of risk is now recognized. The greatest hazard associated with this type of waste is its toxicity, in addition to the metals that could seep into the ground contaminating groundwater, as well as the difficult biodegradability thereof over thousands of years. Despite the hazard it represents, e-waste is very important for greening global energy, and benefiting from its recycled economy, which is known by ‘Circular Economy’”.
Esbaitah went on to add: "I take pride in our collaboration with Boubyan Bank, being a leading institution that embraces sustainable development and the sustainability approach, which has become a main pillar in the strategy of many institutions in line with the criteria and instruments being introduced year after year to globalize this approach in an attempt to achieve a sustainable environmental balance.”
"Over the past six years, where we have been active in the recycling business, we have found a positive and increasing response in our initiative for the preservation of the environment. In the beginning, providing the service of collection and recycling of e-waste was only limited to specialized companies, but now this has extended to include individuals, schools, and non-profit organizations which provide support to our project.”, he added.
Proactive steps to promote sustainability
In this connection, Al-Bassam added: "Boubyan adopts a strategic pathway to successfully incorporate sustainability metrics and the implementation approach thereof, and to invest in achieving its goals, emanating from our belief in the importance of creating a positive impact on the society in a manner that guarantees the introduction of an added value to minimize expected risks.”
The bank has successfully reduced its Scope III emissions due to employee commute by 3 percent. Additionally, Boubyan Bank’s subsidiaries, the Bank of London and the Middle East (BLME) and the BB2 Tech Co decreased their Scope III emissions by 68 percent. In addition to the efforts towards reduction in emissions that have a negative role in climate change witnessed by the world nowadays, the bank has decreased paper consumption by 145,000 papers/year due to Lean projects.
Moreover, Boubyan took a step towards reducing the use of plastic bottles in all of its branches and main buildings, as reusable bottles were distributed to all employees of the bank, while installing water dispensers where water can be refilled, thus saving a huge amount of plastic water bottles used on a daily basis in an attempt to reduce the environmentally harmful plastic waste, and to translate the slogan of "Start with Yourself” into action.