Sunway Putra Mall reinforces commitment to sustainability with textile Recycle Corner

Sunway Putra Mall has partnered social entrepreneurship movement Kloth Cares to provide a Recycle Corner at its carpark to reduce textile waste. This is part of its commitment towards building sustainable cities and communities.Since the initiative started in mid-February, the mall has collected more than 2,000kg garments, making it the top three fabric bin adoption at the mall with highest unwanted fabric collection in the past few months. In fabric recycling, 1kg of t-shirts comprise of six pieces, and Sunway Putra Mall had collected more than 12,000 pieces of t-shirt.“The core objective behind providing a Recycle Corner in the mall is to promote the importance of recycling among shoppers,” said Phang Sau Lian, general manager of Sunway Putra Mall.   According to the Kloth Cares, interest in recycling unwanted garments has been expanding among mall retailers such as Monki, H&M and Levi’s, which have placed recycling bins in the stores. The retail stores accept any brand of clothing and textile or fabric scraps of any condition.The organisation, which aims to keep fabrics out of landfills, said Malaysians produce almost 2,000 tonnes of textile waste a day. It has provided more than 130 recycling bins around Malaysia and the recycled garments will be transported to Life Line Clothing for upcycling.Recently, companies have been hopping on board the green movement, especially in reducing use of plastic. WPP joined the list of companies such Nestle, Yakult Singapore, Burger King, and Starbucks that have committed to phase out single-use plastic. Meanwhile, P&G and AEON are also working with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to turn boxes of discarded plastic from local households or the oceans into podiums for the upcoming games.This comes as F&B outlets in Selangor are banned by the government from providing plastic straws effective 1 July 2019. The state has also stopped giving out free plastic bags on Saturdays. Meanwhile, Penang has stopped giving out free plastic bags on all days, while Kedah ceased the practice for Fridays and Saturdays.