Two-year Dimexon project wins gold and platinum levels in voluntary sustainability standard that has already diverted 133,000kg of waste from landfill
Dimexon is proud to share that our manufacturing site in Coimbatore, India, has achieved Zero Waste to Landfill (ZWL) certification. ZWL is a voluntary sustainability standard that certifies the we are dealing with waste in a responsible manner. Over the course of the first year of ZWL auditing at Coimbatore, more than 133,000kg of waste was diverted from landfill.
The ZWL certificate, which we received in January after being independently audited by TUV India, covers two types of waste:
- Hazardous waste, such as oil, e-waste, batteries and chemical containers
- Non-hazardous waste, including cardboard, garden waste and scrap metals
For hazardous waste, we achieved a gold standard for our result of 93.91% of waste avoiding landfill (some e-waste cannot be recycled therefore it is always assumed for ZWL reporting that 10% will end up in landfill, even when recycled). For non-hazardous waste, we were awarded a platinum standard for our score of 98.48%. All materials were sent to specialist recycling facilities; other than bio-medical waste, which was incinerated.
We worked with an external consultancy to prepare the business to apply for ZWL certification; a process that took more than two years. Two of the largest challenges we faced in meeting the standards were finding the right recycling partners, and providing training for 1,600 Dimexon employees.
“We are very proud of achieving this voluntary sustainability standard, which is part of our wider ESG strategy at Dimexon,” says Dimexon director Baskaran Natarajan, who leads the ZWL project. “To be awarded gold and platinum standards on our first audit is a wonderful building block for us to continually improve on.
“A major undertaking to get ourselves ready for ZWL auditing was to engage our large workforce at Coimbatore in disposing of waste correctly on the factory floor, and we invested in company-wide training to ensure this happened. The next stage was to look at where we were sending our waste, and ensuring that our recycling partners were processing it properly and not sending any to landfill.
"Each company also had to be certified and have an audit trail to back up claims. This proved particularly challenging with plastics recycling, and required us to change vendors and find a new partner that could support our goal of avoiding landfill.”
The ZWL certification is part of our wider ESG strategy. In January, we signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The pledge formalises Dimexon’s dedication to reducing its environmental impact and to working collaboratively towards global climate targets.
For more information on our sustainability strategy, read our annual ESG report.
