1st eco-friendly supermart in Singapore

Singapore's largest supermarket chain NTUC Fairprice officially opened its first green supermarket at the eco-themed City Square Mall in Kitchener Road on Thursday.

Among other features, the store offers eco-friendly products like plates and forks made from corn, and biodegradable floor cleaner made from pineapples.

There are also biodegradable plastic bags and carrier bags partly made of corn which has a carbon footprint that is 70 per cent less than normal plastic bags. Shoppers who bring their own bags pay at dedicated checkout lanes, and customers can also put cans and bottles into a recycling machine.

The store uses 30 per cent less electricity, largely thanks to energy-saving lighting and refrigerators. At the back of the store, an organic waste disposal machine that uses little electricity decomposes expired food.

But shoppers seem slow to converting to the cause. Since the store's soft opening in September, shoppers have been misusing the can and bottle recycling machine, throwing shampoo bottles, cardboard, and even McDonalds drink cups into it instead.

Customers carrying their own bags are also a rare sight. A cashier at the reusable bag lane said that she serves, on average, fewer than 10 customers in an hour, compared to 50 customers hourly at a regular lane. And while Fairprice has been enthusiastically pushing a new range of biodegradable household products by local company Envizyme, response has been tepid.

10.12.2009. 20:58

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