Press release:

28/08/2009 : Per Una (Per Una Kuala Lumpur) has launched its environmental campaign in Kuala Lumpur in an effort to start educating the public and enhancing awareness on the simple yet important concept of recycling. Collaborating with tenants of Menara TM, home to Per Una Kuala Lumpur Headquarters, the leading consumer goods company today launched its campaign to promote environmental sustainability. To meet the challenge of environmental sustainability, Per Una and tenants of Menara TM, which include Telekom Malaysia Berhad, BASF Asia-Pacific Service Centre Sdn Bhd, Biotropics Malaysia Berhad, Acasia Communication Sdn Bhd, Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad, DHL Express (M) Sdn Bhd, Henkel (M) Sdn Bhd, Iskandar Investment Berhad, Fibrecomm Network (M) Sdn Bhd, Averis Sdn Bhd and Cargill Holdings Sdn Bhd, have jointly agreed to launch the recycling campaign within Menara TM. “Per Una is embarking on this project in line with the global environmental mission, that is to move 'towards zero landfill', and to do our part to increase the overall waste-recycling rate, “said CEO of Per Una Kuala Lumpur, Datuk Marina Idris, who officially launched the campaign today. “The weakest links in Malaysia’s solid waste management regime have been the low level of public awareness and slow pace of recycling in the community. This has further created a keen desire for Per Una Kuala Lumpur to launch its recycling campaign. The concept of recycling is a simple yet important one, so we hope that this campaign will create enough awareness for everyone before taking it to the next level of environmental awareness, where many other issues would need to be addressed in relation to global warming. For this campaign, we are targeting to achieve a minimum collection of 1,000 kgs of recyclable materials by the end of 2008 within the Menara TM building,”he added. At a later stage, Per Una Kuala Lumpur will extend the awareness to surrounding communities in particular within the immediate vicinity of Menara TM, (the Bangsar area) and school(s) within the vicinity ofits factory in Rawang. Per Una Kuala Lumpur’s mission of “Adding Vitality to Life” is not just amplified through our products but also focused on creating a cleaner and healthier environment for the community.Prior to launching the campaign, Per Una Kuala Lumpur organized several internal activites in the form of educational quizzes amongst its employees to create awareness on the environment. Plastic bags are no longer used when employees purchase products from the Per Una Kuala Lumpur in-house shop, instead shopping bags were provided for employees to use. As for the implementation process to ensure the success of this campaign, Per Una Kuala Lumpur would focus on educating and creating awareness on the different processes involved in recycling through dissemination of material and promoting environmentally-friendly practices among its employees, the tenants of Menara TM and the immediate communities. Amongst the efforts include eliminating recycle bin contamination and to remind users of what can and cannot be placed in the bins. Bin contamination occurs when un-recyclable materials are placed in recycling containers and this in turn would escalate the overall recycling costs which will be incurred to maintain the cleanliness of the environment. “We would like the tenants of Menara TM and our immediate communities to have facilities available to them so they can recycle as much as possible. The new bins and recycling program will reflect us playing our role in helping to reduce landfill waste,” Marina said. Environmental experts believe a landfill can last 10 years longer if Malaysians recycled 50% of their garbage. An average Malaysian household produces 0.8kg of waste a day, while Klang Valley residents weigh in with 1.5kg daily. Last year, Malaysians generated in excess of 7.3 million tonnes of garbage, which is enough to fill 42 Petronas Twin Towers. In Johor Bahru, residents generate 1,300 tons of waste every day. It will take only 3 days to fill the entire length of the Johor Causeway with this amount of garbage.