CapitaLand expands e-waste recycling efforts

The Singapore-based real estate firm CapitaLand has announced plans to add e-waste recycling bins at 10 of its malls in Singapore. The goal of the program is to encourage shoppers to improve e-scrap recycling efforts in the country. The company’s collection program has been introduced to support Singapore’s Zero Waste National goal under the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint 2015.

CapitaLand says that its e-scrap program builds on its pilot e-waste recycling program that it introduced at Funan DigitaLife Mall in 2014. That location was selected due to its central location and its popularity as a hub for digital and electronic products. Through the pilot program, more than 32,000 kilograms of e-scrap have been collected

To boost the success of the program, CapitaLand also is partnering with the Singapore-based communications firm StarHub  for its mall e-waste recycling initiative, leveraging StarHub’s REcycling Nation’s Electronic Waste (RENEW) program, which was launched in September 2014.

CapitaLand says that its move to increase its e-waste recycling efforts is a follow up to its original recycling efforts, which began in 2008 with the introduction of recycling bins for paper, metal and plastic at all its Singapore properties.

CapitaLand also is working with its Singapore office tenants with an e-waste collection drive through the end of this year at eight of its office properties. The office collection program will be conducted in partnership with Cimelia Resource Recovery, an R2-certified electronics recycler. Cimelia also was a partner on CapitaLand’s Funan recycling program.

Tan Seng Chai, group COO of CapitaLand Limited and chairman of the company’s Sustainability Steering Committee, says, “The strong response to CapitaLand’s pilot e-waste recycling program at Funan DigitaLife Mall convinced us of the public demand for this worthy green practice, so we wanted to make e-waste recycling more accessible to the public. Naturally, we looked to our network of malls in Singapore, given their easy accessibility and geographic spread across the island. As focal points for the communities in which they are located, our CapitaLand malls are well placed for extending the reach of our e-waste recycling program. We are also happy to extend this service to our office properties, so that our office tenants and business associates can also join us on this journey to minimize the environmental impact of e-waste.”