Solid waste, public cleaning concessionaires to be monitored by enforcement officers

PUTRAJAYA: Concessionaires who have won contracts to provide solid waste management and public cleaning services in the country will now be monitored by men in uniform.

Enforcement officers from the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation (PPSPPA), who will carry out the monitoring, will also carry electronic handheld devices to serve notices and compounds on-the-spot.

Concessionaires who fail to perform their job accordingly will be penalised, said Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Chor Chee Heung.

"We will given them a grace period to collect or clean the waste within the same day of when it has been scheduled.

"If they fail to do their job, we will penalise them by deducting the monthly payment due to them," Chor said in a press conference after launching the PPSPPA enforcement uniform at the ministry here Thursday.

There are three concessionaire companies currently engaged to provide solid waste management and public cleansing services in Peninsular Malaysia, namely Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, SWM Environment Sdn Bhd and Environment Idaman Sdn Bhd.

These companies are reported to be awarded with RM800mil a year to upgrade their services.

Selangor, Penang, and Perak are the only states that have yet to adopt the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleanliness Act 2007 (Act 672), which came into force last month.

Chor said the ministry will embark on a public education initiative to encourage Malaysians to pick up the habit of separating their trash according to their recycling properties.

The maximum fine for those caught for littering is RM1,000.

"But we are not going to focus on punishing the public yet because we want to give them a chance to embrace recycling as a way of life by educating them first.

"On average, citizens in advanced countries practice separation of their trash for recycling and at the end of the day, about 40% of these waste could actually be recycled.

"We hope we can attain this level of recycling in the country," said Chor, who also launched the national 3R (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) month campaign Thursday.

P/S: This will give more job opportunities to the Environmental Students :)  

Malaysia gets its first facility to help improve solid waste segregation

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia has received its first small-scale Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), which is expected to improve segregation of recyclable materials from trash, hence reducing the amount of solid waste dumped at landfills.

The RM600,000 facility is set to process some 2,100 tonne of solid waste collected everyday at the Jeram Sanitary Landfill in Kuala Selangor.

A six-month pilot run for the facility revealed that it could boost the recovery of recyclables up to 10 times more than manual segregation efforts.

"Before the MRF, there was manual recovery, which gives about 1%- 2% of recovery.

"With the MRF in the pilot trial, the recovery rate is up to 22% based on 50 tonnes (of solid waste) per day," Tetra Pak (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd communications and environment director Terrynz Tan said at a press conference after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) here Monday.

The company had initiated the small-scale MRF project and the MoU signified the handover of the operations of the facility to Worldwide Landfills Sdn Bhd, which operates the Jeram sanitary landfill.

Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung, who witnessed the signing of the MoU, urged more private companies to step forward in support of recycling efforts including the sponsorship of more small-scale MRF in other landfills in the country.

There are 165 landfills nationwide with only eight that qualified as sanitary landfills.

"For now, the recycling rate in our country is very low, only at an average of 5%.

"With one MRF, I don't think it can make much difference unless there are more (and) unless (there is greater) consciousness among the people to practise the (separation of trash)," Chor said, adding that 22,000 people were expected to take part in a run to be held simultaneously in all state capitals on Nov 17 to raise the awareness on recycling.

Source by: The Star