Chu Xian comes from two generations of road construction and asphalt premix manufacturing founded by her grandfather. Since young, she witnessed the vast amount of natural finite resources consumed to build roads in Singapore. She founded Magorium with the goal to continue our grandfather’s legacy, but in a more sustainable and innovative manner. By using plastic waste to build roads, Magorium aims to both solve the plastic waste problem and create a sustainable construction sector.
We are committed to raise Singapore’s plastic waste recycling rate from the current 4% to at least 35% by 2025.
Founder of Magorium, Oh Chu Xian, paves the way on plastic waste recycling for the construction sector
Magorium is currently at a pre-commercialisation stage. By building two roads made from recycled plastic waste (NEWBitumen), in Singapore, we have diverted more than 1,000kg of plastic waste from incineration. NEWBitumen is a new material made from recycled plastic waste which aims to reduce and replace traditional crude oil derived bitumen in paving roads.
Apart from technological commercialisation, we have also started Magorium Impact to engage the community and schools regarding sustainability and plastic waste recycling.
While Magorium’s technology is a reactive response to our worsening plastic waste crisis, Magorium Impact seeks to be a pre-emptive one. We hope to nurture a green generation of students to become our much-needed sustainability advocates of the future.
The environment has suffered immensely due to plastic waste being disposed of indiscriminately at an immense volume. In 2019, Singapore incinerated more than 900 million kilograms of plastic waste, while there has been little success increasing plastic recycling rates.
Conversely, the construction industry has exponentially increased its consumption of natural resources for infrastructural development. As all these resources are finite, they are depleting at an alarming rate and the environment has little to no chance of recovery. There also hasn’t been much successful innovation in ensuring sustainable construction.
To date we have,
The DBS Foundation Social Enterprise Grant will enable up to 200 tonnes of unrecyclable plastic waste to be processed and help construct a pilot eco-road in Singapore using NEWBitumen. We were also connected with mentors, who provided us valuable inputs for our pitch deck and financial modelling through DBS Foundation.
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Asia’s Safest Bank, 2009 – 2023, Global Finance
Best Bank in the World 2022, Global Finance
World's Best Bank 2021, Euromoney
Best Bank in the World 2020, Global Finance
World's Best Bank 2019, Euromoney
Global Bank of the Year 2018, The Banker
