Solid waste management is one of the major global environmental challenges faced within urban and semi urban areas.

Solid waste management, even in large and medium cities and towns in India, is far from satisfactory and significant proportions are disposed by land filling/dumping. Most dumping sites are serious health hazards to people living in the neighbourhood and are liable to contaminate ground water.

If the generation of solid waste cannot be eliminated due to the current state of raw materials, industrial processes or technology, waste recycling provides practical solutions for saving precious natural resources and energy. It also reduces costs and pollution. Recycling also prevents waste from reaching landfills and, in fact, creates significant employment opportunities.

We have made very significant progress since 2004, when we committed ourselves to become a ‘Zero Solid Waste’ company through 100% recycling.

Our units at Bhadrachalam, Kovai, Tribeni, Chirala and Anaparti generated 149,334 tonnes of fly ash in 2007-08 (124,940 tonnes in 2006-07). The entire fly ash was used for brick making, road/embankment construction and as raw material in cement factories.

We achieved this milestone well ahead of the timeframe stipulated by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

The following units through adoption of world-class technology, focus on process improvements and benchmarked practices and development of competent third parties for waste recycling have achieved practically 100% recycling of all solid waste - Cigarette factories at Bengaluru, Saharanpur, Munger and Kolkata, Leaf Threshing units at Chirala and Anaparti, Specialty Paper units at Kovai and Tribeni, the Green Centre at Gurgaon, Surya Nepal’s Cigarette factory at Simra and ITC Hotels Maurya, Maratha, Grand Central, Sonar, Windsor, Mughal, Kakatiya, Sheraton Chola, Rajputana and New Delhi.