COME Sept 1, households in Negri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya and five other states will have to separate recyclable waste from their rubbish.
It is only days away but, as a resident in a housing area in Seremban, I have yet to hear or receive any instruction on how to go about this.
Besides the reports in the newspapers, there hasn’t been any detailed information on the basics of the process. No notice or banner has been put up or letters dropped in the mailbox. There is also no invitation to any public forum/meeting on the matter and even my regular collector of old newspapers said he has no idea how it should be done.
Have I missed something or is the Seremban Municipal Council (MPS) only planning to do something about this after Sept 1? It would be good if we knew MPS’ plans on this.
Their officials are certainly welcome to visit the housing areas to explain and even demonstrate how rubbish is to be separated and prepared for collection by the designated agency.
Here are a few pertinent questions.
Must plastic, glass, aluminium, metal and other food containers be washed and cleaned before they are put into the bin(s) for recyclable wastes? If they are not cleaned, they will have to be wrapped in plastic bags before they are dropped in the bins otherwise they would attract ants and flies since collection is done only once a week.
Would households be supplied with bins for the recyclable waste? There has been no word on this thus far. If households are to use three separate bags (plastic presumably) as suggested, these bags have to be reasonably large and thick enough to hold the contents.
Three bags a week works out to about 160 bags a year and that is a lot of plastic. So, ironically, are we encouraging the use of plastic here? This will also incur additional cost to the households. In the long run, some kind of reusable containers or bins would be more viable and environmentally-friendly.
What about garden waste like broken/cut branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, rotten/spoiled fruits, old pots and vases? Usually these are left on the road kerbs and not collected for months on end.
Be that as it may, I am optimistic and hopeful that our attitude on waste disposal will be transformed as we comply with the new regulations on waste separation.
Last but not least, let me also share my observations and experience on domestic waste disposal when I was in Melbourne, Australia for about six weeks recently.
I saw garbage being sorted into three big bins labelled food wastes, recyclables, and garden wastes respectively. These were collected on different days in different trucks. Food wastes were collected every Monday, recyclables (paper, glass, plastic, aluminium, etc.) on alternate Mondays, and garden wastes on Monday and upon request. The recyclable wastes are sorted out by the collecting firm.
During the six weeks I was able to observe five Monday morning collections. The trucks arrived within an hour of the scheduled times and the workers did their jobs professionally, leaving no rubbish on the roads or pavements. They seemed to enjoy their work and took pride in it as well.
LIONG KAM CHONG
Seremban
