21 Dec 2021
Oasis Corner in Frasers Tower decked out with colourful 'flowers' made of plastic bottle caps, thanks to the community's contributions towards the upcycling initiative
Just in time for Christmas, a colourful trove of bottle cap flowers has been recently unveiled at Frasers Tower, thanks to the community efforts at Frasers Property’s Grade A commercial building located in Singapore’s Central Business District. While the idea was initiated by the team at Frasers Tower, it could only be made possible with the kind contributions from the building’s office and retail tenants.
Ms Roxanne Lee, Community Manager with the Singapore Commercial team at Frasers Property, shared the inspiration behind the plastic flower initiative. She said: “The idea of reusing plastic bottle caps to create flowers at the Oasis corner of Frasers Tower is part of our commitment towards sustainability and adopting eco-friendly practices. Not only do we want to make better use of existing materials that could have gone to waste, we also want to engage our tenant community to join us in this meaningful initiative to enhance the spaces at our commercial building.”
She added: “We hope this vibrant outdoor installation could spark greater conversations on leading a low-carbon lifestyle and cutting down on single-use plastic. We also want to encourage the community to use their creativity to upcycle and reuse materials for a greener environment. Our last year’s yarn bombing installation of crocheted hearts in the garden on the ground floor has been well received, and some of them were also contributed by our tenants who took part in our yarn bombing virtual classes.”
To ensure the plastic flowers could withstand rain and shine, the team at Frasers Tower developed a prototype that used glue to hold the plastic petals, but it required improvement. The six-person team then devised a way to create holes in the bottle caps by using a watch strap hole punch and connecting them together using paperclips or toothpicks.
The upcycling exercise collected over 700 plastic bottle caps from beverage, food and detergent bottles. It started as early as September where tenants could drop off their cleaned bottle caps in a collection box located at the office lobby. Our team also provided tenants with materials to encourage them to create the flowers using used and washed bottle caps on their end.
Some tenants shared that they enjoyed the process of creating the plastic flowers with their kids, at home. Shermaine Lee, MMSL Pte Ltd, said that “Not only were the plastic flowers cute and fun to make, but it was also a good activity for the parents to bond with the kids”. Moreover, Adeline Tan, Sumitomo Corporation Asia & Oceania Pte Ltd, mentioned that “It feels good to be able to contribute in little ways to promote and encourage recycling!”.
The bottle cap flower installation does not just stop at Frasers Tower. In our efforts to increase outreach and spread the festive cheer, we will be bringing the installation to three other locations after the Christmas period – which include Fern Green Primary School, Sustainable Singapore Gallery and Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Centre in Yishun Town Hub. Not only that, the Frasers Tower team will also be conducting a virtual upcycling workshop for our tenants and a coastal clean-up in early 2022. We certainly hope to spur people to upcycle their plastic items and raise greater awareness that there’s a lot more we can do with such waste!
Frasers Property looks forward to more innovative ideas when it comes to upcycling and recycling as this underpins our goal to be a net-zero carbon organisation by 2050.
Spreading community awareness on upcycling and recycling of single-use plastic