Trash is the new cash
THE BUSINESS TIMES
Apr 11th, 2019
If you consider yourself an eco-warrior because you recycle plastic bottles, drink from stainless steel reusable straws and channel your inner Marie Kondo, you haven't met Arthur Huang. The Taiwan native is the founder of MINIWIZ, a firm dedicated to taking consumer trash and industrial waste and creating innovative new materials that can used for everything from outfitting store interiors and yarn to spin fabric for apparel. Even he himself wears clothes made from such material.
Mr Huang is one of a growing group of eco-preneurs who have succeeded in turning waste into commercial businesses. In Friday's edition of Weekend magazine, we spotlight him and other Singapore-based entrepreneurs who turn leftover orange peels and other vegetable waste into useable resources such as cleaning products and animal feed; and rescues "ugly" food like misshapen fruit and vegetables and sells them at discounted prices. For them, trash is the new currency.