The Malaysian Insight

SEBERANG Prai might proudly boast the country’s highest recycling rate of 47.15% of its total waste, yet only 4% are recycled plastics.

Seberang Prai Municipal Council president Rozali Mohamud said the overall recycling rate is on a par and even slightly higher than advanced countries which recycle 45% of their waste.

“We are proud of our 47.15%. However, the recyclables are not just plastic but metal, boxes, paper, glass bottles and more.

“Unfortunately, plastic represents 4% of the 47.15% of recycled waste. Although the awareness campaign is aggressive, plastic is still found in landfills,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

A Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) study last year on waste-disposal trends show that 15.4% of plastics end up in landfills.

Rozali acknowledged that the various recycle campaigns undertaken by the MPSP seemed to be ineffective as people continued to rely on plastics for convenience.

People may react positively to such campaigns but eventually reverted to their old habits when under pressure.

“At banquets or parties, plastic utensils are used because they are disposable, no need to wash them.

“People may have that desire to reduce plastic usage or to recycle, but they give up to do societal norms. They don’t want to look like the odd one out.

“They also prefer convenience, as plastic bags are handy,” Rozali said.

When recycling and separating waste, Rozali urges consumers to ensure plastics are as clean as possible.

“Most recycling companies don’t want to take dirty plastics because it will increase their workload to clean the material first. If it is too dirty, they will just dispose of it.”

He also urged consumers to compost food waste instead of putting them in plastic containers or bags to be thrown away.

Consumers contribute to the problem of illegal plastic burning and toxic fumes by refusing to do so, he said, because recycling companies only sort and pick the plastics that are clean, easy and of a certain quality to recycle.

“What is of no use to them, they dispose of indiscriminately and illegally.”

It is the same problem the country is facing with the illegal import of plastic waste from overseas, as clean and dirty plastics are mixed together, adding to the difficulty of separating and recycling them.

“Imported plastics are not bad but we need clean plastics. The problem is, the imported plastics are not separated from even nappies.”

He said MPSP has so far detected 14 illegal plastic-processing factories and is taking legal action against them.

In Seberang Perai, there are 511 licensed plastic-processing factories, while another 44 licences are issued to small-scale processors.

The council has to keep a close eye on the smaller companies in the plastic-processing business as they are more likely to flout the rules, such as discharging the water used to clean dirty plastics into rivers or burning dirty plastics openly, causing toxic fumes to affect those living nearby.

The core of the matter is to reduce or even stop use of single-use plastics, Rozali said, and to that end, MPSP has launched several awareness campaigns on this topic.

A campaign to stop using single-use plastics began in January starting with plastic straws, plates and bags.

In April, the council banned plastic straws at all food premises, including school canteens.

In July, more than 500 retail premises voluntarily agreed to stop supplying plastic bags to customers, even if the customer is willing to pay the 20 sen per bag. – August 19, 2019.