Environmental Awarenss Classes in Durham
SANYO Europe Ltd is the regional headquarters for SANYO in the European Region, located in the UK. Together with Durham County Council and Durham University, the company implemented a program for Environmental Awareness at primary and secondary schools in the Durham Regiona, under the slogan “Recharging the Earth.” The program began in January 2010 and was developed to raise the awareness of sustainability and environmental consciousness to primary and secondary school students. While conforming to the UK national curriculum, the class content was planned based on the basic outline of classes designed by SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. in Japan using rechargeable batteries as a teaching subject. Students interacted in hands on learning experiments and battery collection initiatives thereby receiving a high quality learning experience. The program was broadly divided into two phases. In the first phase, teachers conducted classes to students at secondary schools. Once the secondary school students had absorbed the classroom material, they went on to lead classes to primary school students under the supervision of the teachers. Together the students created a project entitled, “What will the world look like in 25 years time,” based on two scenarios, following a sustainable future and a non-sustainable one. Between January and June 2010, the Environmental Awareness Classes were administered at 17 schools to a total of 736 students.
In conjunction with this program, the SANYO Europe Ltd. also carried out a dry-cell battery recycling campaign. The school students bought used batteries from their homes for proper collection and recycling. This was in fact a competition in which the school collecting the most batteries was awarded with “eneloop” rechargeable batteries. The winning school collected 388kg of batteries and almost 1ton of batteries was collected by all the schools collectively.
Durham University SANYO Studentship
 |
The new PhD program with Durham University in the UK, called “Solar Cities in Europe: Embedding Photovoltaics”, will investigate the institutional factors that make the use of photovoltaic technology as a renewable energy possible in cities across Europe. The programme will commence in September 2007 and leading the research will be Anne Maassen, who completed her MSc at King’s College London. The studentship was made possible from a grant provided by SANYO Europe Ltd. to Durham County Council to thank local authorities and the general public for supporting the activities of SANYO Electric over the years. This is the first in a line of joint activities between SANYO and the local council in the North East of England. |
Emirates Environmental Group
SANYO Gulf FZE and the leading NGO in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), announced a 3-year agreement to build greater awareness of eco-friendly products among the region’s youths. This was achieved by providing environmental education and running a battery collection campaign at schools across the region. Schools were encouraged to collect single use battery cells in purpose built collection boxes, provided by SANYO. To encourage them, a set of prizes were made available for the top collecting schools. During the course of the campaign, close to 1.4 tons of dry battery cells were collected and handed over to the local municipality.
RECHARGE Battery Collection Days
|
SANYO has participated in regular dry cell battery collection days at the European Parliament in Brussels. The last event which concluded on 15 May 2007 saw 135 kilograms of used dry cells being collected over the course of one week. The activity was staged in collaboration with RECHARGE, a European based NGO whose members include actors in all stages of the battery lifecycle. The battery collection days at the European Parliament have taken place shortly after the enactment of the European Battery Directive which sets targets on the quantity of batteries that must be recycled in member states, in an effort to reduce the level of toxic waste at landfill sites across Europe. |
 |