Take action now to reduce waste

A representative for the management, Thum Lai Sin recycling plastic bottles at the Taman Desa Relau 2 recycling centre located at the entrance of the apartments in Relau. The residents in the apartment have responded pisitively to the implementation of waste segregation by the state government. At Taman Desa Relau 2, Relau, PenangStarpic by LIM BENG TATT/ THE STAR / 01 Jun 2016.

I FELT good reading the report on plans to build sanitary landfills (“Plans in the works to build sanitary landfills”, Nation, The Star, Jan 24; online at bit.ly/star_landfills) with the intention of moving onto waste-to-energy concept plants using anaerobic digesters and biodigestion. The government has clearly defined the problem of ever-mounting waste and set out to adopt technology and waste management techniques to rectify it.

However, the good feeling turned bad when I read the adjacent news report on the meagre percentage of waste that is recycled every year: 0.06% or 1,800 tonnes out of three million tonnes. The rest apparently ends up in landfills or is burned. A lot of plastic waste also ends up in our waters – about 30,000 tonnes annually is disgorged into our seas, according to National Geographic. This makes us the eighth largest plastic dumper in the world, a fact which our government has admitted to.