Companies Ink Deal to Boost Beverage Carton Recycling in Malaysia

Three companies -- Tetra Pak Malaysia & Singapore (TPM&S), Alam Flora Sdn Bhd and Pascorp Paper Industries Bhd -- signed a memorandum of understanding to enable the introduction of beverage carton recycling in Malaysia.

Under the collaboration, Alam Flora will be buying beverage carton waste from the public. The beverage cartons collected will then be sent for recycling at Pascorp.

Last year, TPM&S distributed 804 million carton packages in Malaysia and Singapore and these were potential materials for recycling.

"TPM&S was not able to introduce the recycling program in Malaysia much earlier as paper mills were hesitant to embrace beverage carton recycling due to lack of awareness and secondly, TPM&S was looking for a partner to assist us in the collection process. We have now found Pascorp and Alam Flora," said Peter Jhaveri, TPM&S’s managing director.

Alam Flora's chief executive officer Mohamed Siraj Abdul Razack said the collaboration would benefit the company as 50 percent of the landfill in Alam Flora's control has either reached its maximum capacity or would be reaching it by middle of next year.

"Hence, recycling today is no longer an option but a necessity, in order to protect both the environment and the quality of life. With TPM&S initiative, we can now save 804 million TPM&S cartons a year from our landfills," he said.

"In Germany itself, more than 65 percent of Tetra Pak packages sold are being recycled on an annual basis. By the year 2020, if Malaysia can recycle 30 percent of the Tetra Pak packages, it would be good enough," Jhaveri said.

Meanwhile, Pascorp's assistant general manager Daniel Lew said the company would recycle the fiber in beverage cartons into box boards while the poly-aluminum residuals would be made into panel boards to be used in the furniture industry.