Pictured above:  HSBC Malta CEO Andrew Beane handing over a new reusable water bottle to a student of Kirkop Secondary 

 Hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles will be saved from being ditched into Malta’s two landfill sites thanks to a new initiative by the HSBC Water Programme – Catch the Drop to replace disposable water bottles of school-going children with reusable ones.

To date, the campaign has distributed a total of 2,070 high-quality reusable bottles at five schools, which is expected to generate a saving of 382,950 bottles in a year. This is calculated as each student bringing a disposable water bottle to school five days a week for 37 scholastic weeks in a year [2070 x 5 x 37 = 382,950].

The latest school to receive bottles is St Benedict College – Kirkop Secondary, where the HSBC Water Programme – Catch the Drop distributed a total of 800. All bottles being donated by HSBC are of the highest quality and are BPA (bisphenol A.) free, making them safe for children to reuse. They also reduce the weight of the school bags if users refill them at school.

And as good waste management begins with prevention, the HSBC Water Programme – Catch the Drop campaign is launching another initiative, which will allow HSBC Malta staff to install a domestic reverse osmosis (RO) plant at their homes. The Bank will be partially subsidising the cost of each RO plant..

Under this initiative, a minimum of 150 staff and their families are expected to stop using plastic bottled water, avoiding the production and disposal of 135,000 bottles per year.

This will bring the number of saved bottles to 517,950.

Further complementing the campaign’s wide-ranging conservation efforts is a new waste separation initiative, where the Bank will be distributing a total of 20,800 bio-degradable recycling bags to various schools.

HSBC Malta CEO Andrew Beane said: “The key thing we are trying to achieve is to build awareness amongst students that the resources that we have here in Malta are really precious and we have a responsibility to look after those resources and use them responsibly and to preserve them in a way that will support the future generations.”