Potty over pots
PEOPLE went potty over a recent sales promotion for cookware.
They were promised a brand new 24-cm Silverstone pan free in exchange for any old pot or pan taken to one of 10 NTUC and Oriental Emporium branches.
By the time the three-week promotion ended last Monday, there was a mountain of more than 2,000 old pots and pans at the Asia Metals recycling plant.
In return, Silverstone gave away the same number of new pans. Each cost $24.95.
Mrs Doris Goh was one of the first to take her old aluminium saucepan to the Hougang Oriental Emporium.
"It used to be my mum’s favourite pot. She cooked porridge in it. Later it became a container for oil," said Mrs Goh, 36, a housewife.
She said her mother did not want her to exchange the pot at first — but it was not for sentimental reasons.
"It was so black it was a strain to try to wash. My mum actually tried to persuade me to clean it first because she felt embarrassed for me to take it in," she said.
Ms Rebecca Chan, marketing communications manager for Silverstone coated cookware in Asia, said: "We had to turn away four to five times more people than we could accommodate, every day.
"Sometimes, one family would send several members, each bearing one pot. But we made the exchange anyway. This is mainly a goodwill gesture from the company."
After turning in their old pots, people queued up as early as 6.30 am at distribution points in Bishan, Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio and Hougang to get their new ones.
They had exchanged pots made of clay, aluminium, porcelain and other materials. Many were charred black. Some had missing handles. Others even had holes in them.
Mr Lim Bueh Soon, director of the recycling plant, said the old pots will be made into steel ingots for construction work and aluminium sheets for computer parts and car rims.
The scrap value of the metals was around $600 or $700, he said. By contrast, the organizers said the campaign cost them about $55,000.
Du Pont’s regional marketing manager Benjamin Hsu said the recycling exercise was "in keeping with Du Pont’s commitment to support environment-friendly activities".
305 TONNES OF METAL RECYCLED EACH DAY
AT Asia Metals, about five tonnes of aluminium and 300 tonnes of steel are processed each day, said Mrs Lim Puay Tiong, an executive at the plant.
The metal is usually collected door-to-door or from construction sites, where window fittings and doors are usually thrown away.
The metals are then sorted by a machine. It uses a magnet to separate steel from aluminium and other metals. The aluminium is melted
into ingots and sold to computer companies such as Wearnes Technology to be made into disc drive parts, or to Black and Decker to be made into irons.Steel is sorted into grades and sold to Malaysia, NatSteel, or made into steel bars for construction.
"But there is a loss of weight for every piece, because of melting down, and impurities found in them," said Asia Metals director Lim Bueh Soon.
Source : The New Paper, May 26 1992
Recycling Point Dot Com
(C) 2000 All Rights Reserved