Plants for Plastic is the brainchild of co-founder Mark Liao. With a strong environmental background, Mark began to take up gardening seriously only in 2021, as an aid to cope with the death of his mother during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic restrictions were gradually lifted, Mark changed his plans to pursue a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science and decided to open this Garden Centre and Events Space based on Environmental Conservation. His hope is to run a Garden Centre with sustainable practices as well as to cultivate and grow the environmental conservation community while providing and creating green jobs throughout Sarawak.

Plants for Plastic was officially launched in a private event on 1 October 2023 by Datin Christina Lee Juat Lan, and opened its doors to the public starting 2 October 2023. The location of Plants for Plastic was actually Datin Christina’s childhood home, estimated to be at least 100 years old. During refurbishments, we were very careful to retain as much of the original structure as we could, as an ode to the history of the home it once was. Roughly 90% of the fittings and furniture are secondhand or repurposed from preused materials – in keeping with our intention to recycle and upcycle as much as we could.