Singapore’s largest food waste recycling company has shut for good.
But IUT Global’s closure does not spell the end of the industry, as its customers search for alternatives and new players come on the scene.
The homegrown company started in 2008 and was feted by then Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim as a milestone in waste management and recycling.
The company aimed to one day process 800 tonnes of food daily, turning it into organic fertiliser and biogas for electricity to power up to 10,000 homes.
But by March this year, it was still collecting only 120 tonnes to 130 tonnes a day. That produced gas for electricity to power just 500 households, and it sold or gave away the organic compost that remained, said IUT managing director Edwin Khew.
Up to 40 per of the food waste was sullied with plastic bags and other inorganic trash, which meant that it had to be sent for incineration, raising operating costs.
In February, IUT Global entered voluntary liquidation. Two months later, it stopped collecting waste from customers. By the end of May, its Tuas premises and part of the equipment from the 2.8ha plot were sold to recycling firm Enviro-Hub Holdings for $15.8 million.
Singapore has long faced an uphill struggle to recycle its food waste. Only 16 per cent of the 640,500 tonnes generated last year was disposed of in this way. That is a slight increase from the 13 per cent rate for the past two years. But it is a long way off the target of 30 per cent by next year outlined nearly a decade ago in the Singapore Green Plan 2012.
As Singapore’s largest food waste recycler, IUT Global’s customers included hotels, cafeterias, food manufacturers and markets. Some of them are now looking for alternative recycling services, while others have resorted to incinerating their waste.
Pan Pacific Singapore is one of those looking for alternatives. Although the food recycling has stopped for the moment, the hotel is ‘still continuing its green efforts in other areas such as reducing energy and water consumption’, said marketing communications director Alexandra Schmutterer.
The National University of Singapore had been recycling 25 tonnes to 50 tonnes of food waste a month, said its sustainability executive Marcus Tay. One of its canteens was certified an Eco Food-Court in a Singapore Environmental Council scheme earlier this year. That certification is valid for a year but it runs out in January. So NUS plans to appoint an alternative food recycler, said Mr Tay.
The small number of food recyclers here have seen enquiries jump this year. They include Eco-Wiz, which sells and leases on-site waste digesters.
‘Quite a handful of potential customers are signing up to get the digesters, which can convert up to one tonne of food waste at a time into compost,’ said sales manager Amanda Tan. The devices cost up to $110,000 up front but users save on incineration fees, she said. Eco-Wiz has installed 15 of them so far.
IUT Global’s Mr Khew still believes there is a future in recycling food waste. Now, he is looking overseas to the rest of South-east Asia.
‘We were planning to build more plants but this has sort of dented our capabilities and resources,’ he said. IUT Global took eight or nine years to develop, build and grow.
‘I still have the patents,’ he said. ‘But I have to start again from square one.’
