Sime Darby Plantation begins fabric recycling

23 Jul '18

3 min read

Courtesy: Sime Darby Plantation

Keeping up with its role as leader in plantation sustainability, Sime Darby Plantation Berhad has unveiled a fabric recycling initiative in collaboration with Kloth Cares, a fabric recycling organiser. The initiative is an effort by Sime Darby Plantation to play its role in helping reduce textile waste, the second largest polluter in the world after oil.

Launched by Tengku Datin Paduka Setia Zatashah Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, a member of the board of trustee of Selangor Youth Community, a partner of the initiative, the launch today is an effort by Sime Darby Plantation to play its role in helping to reduce textile waste which is the second largest polluter in the world after oil.
Textile waste constitutes about 4 per cent of the total municipal waste generated in Malaysia. This is estimated to be about 2,000 tonnes out of the more than 42,000 tonnes (2017) generated daily in this country.

“Sime Darby Plantation does not only believe in the importance of conducting our business in a sustainable way but we also aspire to instil a greater sense of responsibility and sustainability awareness amongst our employees. This includes making the habit of recycling as an essential part of their daily lives,” said Sime Darby Plantation’s chief sustainability officer, Dr. Simon Lord.

This initiative is aimed at educating its employees to recycle unwanted fabrics and to prevent them from ending up in landfills. Clothes collected will be segregated at the collection centre and those that are still in good condition will be sent to charitable organisations locally and abroad. Items that are no longer wearable will be made into useful items such as wiping cloth or fabric pallets that can be used to fuel boilers.

“The launch today is part our bigger waste recycling plan for Sime Darby Plantation, namely to reduce the number of landfills in our operations through waste segregation at source. To date, we have managed to reduce the number of our landfills in Malaysia by 37 per cent. In this continuous improvement programme, we hope to reduce the number of landfills by 50 per cent in 2021 and 70 per cent by 2023,” said Simon.

He also added that since Kloth Cares was also operating in states like Melaka, Negri Sembilan and Johor, the initiative would also be extended to Sime Darby Plantation’s operations in these states.

Sime Darby Plantation started active recycling of office wastes at the headquarters since 2016 during its first War on Waste (WoW 1.0) programme. Under that programme, the organisation does not only reduce the generation of physical waste such as printing papers, it also looks into ways to increase productivity by eliminating wastage of non-physical items such time and energy. Following WoW 1.0 Sime Darby Plantation partnered with Community Recycle Charity (CRC) to undertake recycling of office waste. (SV)

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