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As part of its Wealth Out of Waste (WOW) programme, ITC celebrated the second anniversary of 'National Recycling Day' with more than 10,000 school children, 500 delegates from the state government and the corporate sector as well as countless citizens in the city of Chennai today.

Inaugurated by Thiru D Jayakumar, Hon'ble Speaker, Tamil Nadu State Legislative Assembly, the event also witnessed participation by eminent personalities who shared their views on the significance of Recycling and effective waste management.

A global exemplar in sustainable and inclusive business practices, ITC is the only enterprise in the world of comparable dimensions to be carbon positive (for the last 7 years), water positive (10 years) and solid waste recycling positive (5 years). It's businesses generate sustainable livelihood opportunities for over 5 million people, many of whom belong to the weaker sections of society.

ITC's commitment to the State of Tamil Nadu is manifest in its having 4 of its businesses including Education and Stationery Products, Agarbattis, Safety Matches and Packaging headquartered in the State. The Company has also invested in setting up state of the Art manufacturing facilities in Packaging and Printing in Tiruvottiyur, a Paperboards factory in Kovai, a cigarette factory in Hosur as well as contract manufacturing units for ITC's branded packaged foods business. ITC has built a spectacular super premium hotel in Chennai with one of the largest convention centers in the country in addition to 8 existing hotels in Chennai, Ooty and Madurai. It has partnered with the small scale sector in the State for its Education and Stationery Products, Agarbattis and Safety Matches Businesses. ITC's businesses, value chains and distribution network support livelihoods for over 8,00,000 people in the State of Tamil Nadu.

In line with ITC's sustainability practices, ITC's WOW programme implemented by its Paperboards and Specialty Papers Division aims to creates awareness among general public about the "Reduce-Reuse-Recycle" to protect and restore the environment, inculcates the habit of source segregation amongst the general public, school children, corporates and people from every walk of life.

Lauding the audience for their participation in the programme, Thiru D Jayakumar, Hon’ble Speaker, Tamil Nadu State Legislative Assembly remarked, "We congratulate ITC for such a noble initiative. Preserving our natural resources is critical for the existence of life. This is in line with the vision of the Tamil Nadu Government and we fully support the WOW initiative to achieve a clean and green society and reduce global warming.

Present at the occasion, Mr Pradeep Dhobale, Executive Director, ITC Limited said, "In line with ITC's commitment towards creating larger environmental and societal value through collaborative action, ITC launched the Wealth out of Waste (WoW) initiative and with the support of all stakeholders including schools, corporate bodies and state governments, this initiative has grown from strength to strength. To enhance awareness and to pledge support for this initiative, we have decided to commemorate the 1st of July as the 'National Recycling Day' and take great pride in celebrating its second anniversary today in the city of Chennai ."

Mr Sanjay Singh, Chief Executive, ITC's Paperboards and Specialty Papers Division and Mr Chand Das, Chief Executive, ITC's Education and Stationery Products Business and Mr V M Rajasekharan, Chief Executive, ITC's Agarbattis and Safety Matches Businesses were also present on the occasion.

Must Know

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With increasing population, people will have only 25% of the resources that were available in 1950.

Recycling can help save $ 2 billion of foreign exchange by way of reduced imports of wastepaper.

The event marked discussions on the importance and value of Recycling, with the aspiration to inspire and involve the nation in a consolidated effort to preserve our natural resources and understand the worth of waste regeneration.

The programme is being supported by ITC's education and stationery products business which markets notebooks and other stationery products under the Classmate brand. To reward students and children for their efforts in source segregation and recycling, Classmate is offering notebooks and other stationery products at a discounted price. This would enable students to become a part of the virtuous cycle of waste recycling as the cover of the notebooks is made from recycled Board and the pages are made from pulp which is sourced from ITC's social and farm forestry programme which has created a green cover of over 125,000 hectares

Today the ITC WOW programme is operational in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Cochin, Coimbatore, Trichy, Erode, & Madurai. What started with just 10MT collection of recyclables through the WOW collection has now swelled to over 4000MT/month. Over 3 million citizens, 500,000 school children, 350 corporates, over 1,000 commercial establishments and about 200 industries are supporting WOW across South India, which in turn helps augment green cover, conserve scarce natural resources, make surroundings clean and healthy and created livelihood opportunities for over 4000 underprivileged people.