Environment lover hopes his recycling website will become educational portal for green cause

Ten years ago, Joseph Tan began a recycling company that sounded too good to be true.

We will collect our waste paper for free to sell to mills, Tan told companies.

All you have to do is put it aside, and we will do the work.

He went from door to door, pleading with people to subscribe to the green cause.

He had six men and two trucks. The company, Impact Recycling, nearly went under.

But 10 years on, recycling is in again, with no less than the Environment Ministry vowing to make a big push for it.

Waste contractors are now required to introduce a waste-recycling scheme to every household, which will come into effect next month.

Tan, von might say, was ahead of his time. But despite the setbacks, he persisted.

Last year, he launched Singapore’s first recycling website, Recycling Point Dot Com, which encourages people not to throw away materials that can be re used.

Since it was launched, about 100 to 200 parties, both households and business, have registered to have their re-usable junk picked up by Fan’s "area managers".

It was the Internet which helped to spread the word about Tan’s business to so many pioneers.

‘The website will really help us to explain what recycling is all about," said Tan, 35.

Thanks to it. his company made more than $3 million last year. a fig— tire he expects will rise to $14 million this year.

He now has 65 people on his rolls, some of whom use their own cars to collect waste.

But he’s not really interested in raking in the big bucks,

Instead, he hopes the website will become an educational portal for the green cause.

Don’t think he’s for real? Well, you won’t find slick corporate messages on the site exhorting you to recycle with this company.

Instead, you will find links to other environmental websites, a painstakingly archived collection of hundreds of environment newspaper clippings dating back to 1988 (collated by Tan himself) and a (green Pledge you can make online to reduce, reuse and recycle.

But even now, persuading people to come on board and recycle is a battle for him and his staff.

"It was very hard for them and even me to get to the people on top because they still think we’re karang guni (rubbish collectors)." said Tan.

He added that since he i tins a profit-oriented company, it is harder to get support from those who regard environmentalism as a wholesome, non-profit voluntary cause.

"We tried going the non-profit way some time back, but it’s not viable, partly because you have to get a lot of sponsors," he said.

But Tan is still trying to penetrate the ivory tower by networking with business associates, something he finds difficult because he is not a smooth-talking environment a list.

He’s more comfortable working on the ground.

Dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt sans tie, Tan takes phone calls from interested clients and relays messages to his "Uncle and Ah Soh" area managers. in Hokkien.

Intimately familiar with his warehouse in Kallang Bahru Complex, Fan even knows where the circuit boards are and where the waste paper is stored, He has roped in his mother — who calls it a "family business" and wife to do some housekeeping in the warehouse and to help in making payments to his area managers.

"I do this with feeling." said Tan, adding that he gets great satisfaction looking at a pile of shredded paper waiting to be recycled, knowing that 10 years ago, it would have been discarded or burnt.

But for now, he only hopes that his website will become a portal of choice for green information, especially for school children.

Said this activist, earnestly: "I want to share my years of hard work, experience and news clippings. and I sincerely hope the younger generation will make use of it."

-By Wong Sher Maine

Source : Project Eyeball, Mar 30, 2001

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