Glass bottles recycling programme launched in KK
KOTA KINABALU: Staying true to its Purpose of Brewing for a Better Today and Tomorrow, Carlsberg Malaysia in collaboration with the Sabah Recycling Association (Ripple) have pilot-tested a three-year glass bottle recycling and community empowerment programme named CarlsBot.
Managing Director of Carlsberg Malaysia, Stefano Clini said committing towards its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda, the brewer has co-created a circular glass bottle ecosystem with Ripple to recycle its nonreturnable glass bottles in Kota Kinabalu by empowering local communities to tackle waste and generate income from them.
“Glass is one of the most difficult waste items to dispose of in Sabah. Unlike plastic and organic waste, there has not been much effort to find ways to turn glass into products that could generate income.
“As Sabahans recover from the socio-economic effects of the pandemic, Carlsberg Malaysia stepped up its investment on ESG, in addition to sales and marketing in Sabah, to make a difference to the lives and livelihoods of the local communities by addressing the mounting issue around the disposal, collection and recycling of glass bottles in Kota Kinabalu over the three-year CarlsBot programme, which will take place from end 2022 to 2025,” he said at the launch of CarlsBot at Tanjung Aru Marine Ecosystem (TAME) on Tuesday.
Stefano said the programme’s namesake takes cue from its famous flagship brand ‘Carlsberg’ – ‘Carls’ while ‘Bot’ refers to a ‘robot’ or machine that can crush glass ‘bot-tle’ hence the name ‘CarlsBot’.
The optimum capacity for each CarlsBot machine is 1,176 glass bottles crushed, or 300kg glass cullets produced every 90 minutes.
For year one, three CarlsBot machines will be made available in Kota Kinabalu at the Tanjung Aru Marine Ecosystem Center (TAME) and two community centres in Luyang and Kingfisher.
These made-in-Sabah CarlsBot machines can generate income for Sabahans whilst reducing glass waste in Sabah.
The CarlsBot machine, brainchild of a native Sabahan inventor, Adrian Lasimbang of TONIBUNG (Friends of Village Development), was inspired by other glass bottles crushers in the market and improvised to provide a solution to the overflow of unrecycled glass bottles that end up in landfills.
With the crushed glass produced by CarlsBot in the forms of cullet, coarse sand and fine sand, Ripple provides the recycled materials to local communities and trains them with entrepreneurial, innovation, marketing and sales skills to repurpose the glass bottle waste into materials which can be used in various beneficial ways such as handicrafts, furniture, 3D printed housing and Kota Kinabalu shoreline sand retention.
Meanwhile, Ripple chairperson Tressie Yap said they are proud and excited to collaborate with Carlsberg Malaysia who will provide them with funding to operate, manage and monitor the CarlsBot programme.
She said the three-year glass bottle ecosystem will effect changes with their network of NGOs and social enterprises which includes TAME, TONIBUNG, Siung Films, Upcycled Shack, Moyog Innovation House, PACOS Trust and One Ocean Empire.