Any Scandinavian knows not to leave the water running while brushing their teeth. For years, we have been told that it is bad for the environment and that we need to preserve water. In Malaysia, however, it took a report from 2009 to come up with the same result, and this has caused especially the Malaysian youth to behave more green.
June 5th is World Earth Day and as Malaysia is considering how to be greener, Swedish Tetra Pak is used as an example. At the carton producing company, each product is a green product all on its own. Everything from materials to where the products are stored and sold to the consumer is environmentally friendly.
The cartons are made from renewable raw materials from Scandinavia and America, and more than 70 percent of them are aseptic, which means that they can be transported, stored, and kept without being refrigerated, which saves enormous amounts of energy. The company has also signed an agreement with WWF to reduce its Carbon Dioxide emission and to date it has managed to do so by seven percent. As the agreement was signed in 2006 and the goal is to reduce CO2 emissions by ten percent, Tetra Pak is well on its way.
Tetra Pak has also taken steps to educate the young, through their Nurture for Nature Beverage Carton Recycling Programme, which they organise in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia.
In addition to that, the company has co-operated with numerous NGOs and authorities alike to instill the green good in schools and was thus presented an Appreciation Award by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government during Malaysia’s National Recycling Day on November 26, 2005.
