The National Environment Agency (NEA) of Singapore on Tuesday recognised 16 companies for their packaging waste reduction achievements at the 3R Packaging Awards held at the Singapore Expo.
Nestlé Singapore and Tetra Pak Jurong won the top prize - the Platinum Award - at the event. The two international companies were also given the Distinction Award, which was also awarded to ST Aerospace Engineering.
Now in its sixth year, the 3R Packaging Awards is organised by the Singapore Packaging Agreement Governing Board under the NEA. The goal is to make businesses more sustainable in terms of packaging and create consumer awareness on the waste generated by product packaging.
In 2007, various companies, the government and NGOs had voluntarily signed a pact called the Singapore Packaging Agreement (SPA), which was the basis of this goal. At that time, packaging waste accounted for one-third the weight of the total domestic waste disposed of in Singapore.
The agreement has since been renewed last year with the added aim of reducing 6,500 tonnes of waste by 2015.
Since the initial signing, SPA signatories have reduced a total of 14,900 tonnes of packaging waste in the country, which is equivalent to $31 million in savings. As for the recent goal, more than half, or 4,800 tonnes of waste to be exact, has already been reduced.
This positive outcome is a result of the increasing number of initiatives and companies adopting the reduce-reuse-recycle approach, said the NEA.
At the event, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, presented the awards to the winning firms. These companies either minimised the size or thickness of their packaging, switched to reusable packaging, or completely changed the packaging of their products.
For example, when Nestlé was also given the Platinum and Distinction Awards last year, it was because of increasing the length of laminate packaging per satchet reel of its Milo Hi-Calcium and Milo Easy Cool 3-in-1 products. This means the reel has more satchets around its paper-made core, thereby reducing the need for more cores to contain the sachets.
Nestlé also told its supplier to stop using carton boxes for packaging the reels. Both changes greatly lessened the firm’s paper waste and increased their material cost savings.
Similarly, Tetra Pak also won the same awards last year for implementing changes in the company’s paperboard printing and lamination processes.
Meanwhile, this year’s other Distinction Award recipient and first-time winner, ST Aerospace Engineering, was commended for reusing packaging materials from imported goods, as well as shredded paper and old newspapers, to pack aircraft equipment instead of the usual chemical foam.
The other winners of the 2013 3R Packaging Awards included:
Gold Award
- Asia Pacific Breweries (Singapore) Pte Ltd
- CROWN Beverage Cans Singapore Pte Ltd
- Greenpac (S) Pte Ltd
- Ha Li Fa Pte Ltd
- Starlite Printers (Far East) Pte Ltd
- Subway Singapore Development Pte Ltd
- Sunfresh Singapore Pte Ltd
- Winrigo (S) Pte Ltd
- Wyeth Nutritionals (Singapore) Pte Ltd
Merit Award
- Asia Pacific Breweries (Singapore) Pte Ltd
- Chee Seng Oil Factory Pte Ltd
- CROWN Beverage Cans Singapore Pte Ltd
- Greenpac (S) Pte Ltd
- Ha Li Fa Pte Ltd
- LHT Holdings Ltd
- Seagate Technology International
- Starlite Printers (Far East) Pte Ltd
- Subway Singapore Development Pte Ltd
- Sunfresh Singapore Pte Ltd
- Toshiba TEC Singapore Pte Ltd
- Winrigo (S) Pte Ltd
- Wyeth Nutritionals (Singapore) Pte Ltd
The awards ceremony was co-located with the Waste Management Symposium 2013, which convened local and international experts from the waste management industry to raise the productivity of the waste management sector in Singapore.
