LHT thrives as a pioneering wood waste recycler
Overcoming limited space and scarce natural resources, Singapore has become internationally recognised for its environmental sustainability strategy, with recycling as one of its key pillars. Homegrown company LHT is playing a vital role in advancing the government's recycling initiative with its pioneering efforts to transform waste wood and horticultural waste into eco-friendly packaging materials and other wood-based products.
Overcoming limited space and scarce natural resources, Singapore has become internationally recognised for its environmental sustainability strategy, with recycling as one of its key pillars. Homegrown company LHT is playing a vital role in advancing the government's recycling initiative with its pioneering efforts to transform waste wood and horticultural waste into eco-friendly packaging materials and other wood-based products.
LHT opened the country's first wood waste recycling plant in 1999 as part of its commitment towards a greener and more sustainable future.
"We're engaged in genuine recycling, with our entire production process - from upstream to downstream - achieving zero-waste management," says Neo Koon Boo, co-founder and managing director.
Equipped with state-of-the-art German technology, the company's recycling plant produces "new wood", dubbed as Technical Wood, out of unwanted wooden cases, pallets, furniture, construction wood and other wood wastes. Residual sawdust and wood chips at the plant are even mixed as biofuel for in-house cogeneration use. LHT also supplies 100,000 tonnes of wood chips a year to feed a local renewable energy plant.
Technical Wood is consistent in colour, texture and density, and has comparable characteristics to those of natural solid wood, but has the added advantage of being pest- and fungus-resistant in compliance with international standards. Apart from its green attributes, Technical Wood is fire-retardant and cost-effective.
These strengths make Technical Wood the ideal fundamental component for LHT's green series of pallets and crates sold under the Innovative Process Product Conversion (IPPC) brand. In addition to being pest-free, IPPC pallets are better packaging solutions than heat-treated wooden pallets because they are lighter and can be re-engineered in various aspects such as shape, size and functionality, resulting in reduced wastage.
LHT is also renowned for its environmentally friendly and space-saving GPac compressed mould pallets and fire-rated Greenflo flooring and door systems. These product lines feature the many advantages of Technical Wood.
"We offer customers green and innovative solutions that improve their cost competitiveness and environmental merit," says May Yap, executive director. "We complement these with a quick turnaround time, resulting in low cost and high productivity."
