Assortment of rubbish from eight countries found

PORT KLANG: Dirty plastic cups from Saudi Arabia, compact discs from Bangladesh and used charging wires from the United States.

These were among the waste inspected in front of the two busloads of media representatives yesterday by the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (Mestecc).

Altogether, nine big containers of waste from eight countries – Aust­ralia, Bangladesh, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Japan and China – were displayed at Westport here.

The waste from Australia consisted of dirty milk cartons, some of which contained maggots, while the consignment from the United States comprised e-waste, particularly charging wires and laptop chargers.

The waste from Japan consisted of broken plastics with chairs and fan frames visible in neatly packed plastic, while the Canadian waste comprised dirty plastic bags.

The waste from United Kingdom comprised copper wires bound by rubber.

While copper waste is allowed into the country, rubber is not, a Mestec official explained.

A consignment from China revealed plastic bags and waste from France, including from a popular supermarket.

Perhaps the most shocking was the waste from Bangladesh as previously, it was reported that most of the waste dumped here was from developed countries.

“I was shocked. In front was legal waste, while the illegal waste was placed behind,” Mestecc minister Yeo Bee Yin said of used compact discs, which are not allowed to be imported into the country.“We want to send this back,” she added.