Honestly, I've never thought about where exactly all this waste goes to, until now. So without having to think of how to phrase things, I'm going to write down the whole process of solid waste disposal in Malaysia in point form. Starting from the generation of this waste.
1. The generation of solid waste.
We don't actually think about how much waste we generate and what actually gets generated to waste. It's everything and anything! Literally, from glasses to boxes to plates from restaurants, to electrical wires and CDs.
2. Collection of solid waste.
Special thanks to our hard working friends behind the scenes from Alam Flora, other collection companies, and even random rubbish pickers.
3a. Recycling to products
Only very little of this trash actually goes to the usual glass/plastic/paper/metal recycling plants as a lot of our trash is wet. A box drowned in unwanted curry and many other graphic examples I wouldn't like to describe :)
3b. Recycling to compost or enzymes.
This is more for what our wet rubbish is accustomed for. There's a compost production in Subang Jaya called Projek Pengkomposan Sisa Makanan MPSJ. So a few hawker stalls actually bring their unwanted/our wasted food there to be made into compost for fertilisation.
Wet waste can also be made into enzymes to create soap, washing up liquid and other things that enzymes do :)
3c. To the landfills!!!
Now, we have about 200 landfills all around Malaysia but only a handfull are worth mentioning, which are the sanitary landfills. Normal dumps like the one in Sungai Seminyih (which got shut down September this year) do NOT dispose of the trash the proper way. As I said earlier, living in this country and eating the food we eat, most of our waste is not dry. Now, the yummy juices that come out of our rubbish is called LEACHATE. For quite a few of these landfills, the leachate seeps into the soil and makes its way to our rivers and this may be why our tap water is undrinkable.
Hopefully soon most landfills will become Sanitary Landfills. A fine example would be the one in Bukit Tagar, opearated and developed by KUB and obviously Berjaya. Now this is a special landfill that covers 1700 acres of land, not only is it lined with plastic to act as an irrigation system for the leachate, the poisonous Methane gas that is created by the stench of the rubbish is then converted into energy!!! Not very well explained, so you can check out KUB-Berjaya Enviro Sdn. Bhd.
Two thumbs up to you!!
At least we know something's being done about the future.
Photography by Suchen SK
No comments:
Post a Comment