15,000 used banners to be recycled into collectible items

Channel NewsAsia 26 Aug 09;

SINGAPORE: A record 15,000 banners will be recycled into collectible items for the launch of Clean and Green Singapore (CGS) 2010 later this year.

The Banner Recycle! Programme aims to drive home the message that recycling can help conserve Singapore's limited resources and at the same time, be rewarding to the community.

More than 12,000 used banners have been gathered so far from events such as the National Day Parade and the Asian Youth Games.

Organisers – the National Environment Agency and South West Community Development Council – hope to produce at least 10,000 practical and collectible items made from the banners.

South West CDC's Mayor Amy Khor said: "We are getting the women members from WEworkz, Women's cooperative, to turn the banners into recyclable grocery bags, pencil cases, phone pouches, coin purses and so on.

"The women will be paid for making these bags and pencil cases, and these recyclable items will be distributed at the Clean and Green Singapore Carnival later in the year."- CNA/so

Old banners reborn as bags in green move
Straits Times 27 Aug 09;

BANNERS that used to flutter at the National Day Parade, at the zoo or on the National University of Singapore campus will be reborn as bags or phone pouches in the name of recycling.

The effort by the National Environment Agency (NEA) and South West Community Development Council will involve 20 women from low-income households, who will cut up the banners and sew them into practical items.

The women are from WEworkz, a cooperative providing training and part-time employment opportunities primarily to housewives.

The items they churn out will be given out as goodie bags and prizes, or sold during NEA's three-day Clean and Green Singapore Carnival from Oct 30.

By then, organisers hope to have made at least 10,000 bags from some 15,000 used banners. So far, 12,000 banners have been gathered from donors.

The project is funded by ExxonMobil Asia Pacific, whose staff will also help out with the production process.

Dr Amy Khor, the Mayor of the South West District and Senior Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, said: 'Through the banner recycling programme, we hope to raise awareness of the 3Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - and at the same time, assist the less fortunate in the district.'

WEE JUN KAI