Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin intends to revisit the waste separation at home initiative, four years after the BN government attempted to implement it the first time.
"We will start in residential areas first.
"Of course we are going to increase our awareness programme, our educational programme.
"It has to come along with some regulations, laws and penalties.
"So we have the laws, but the enforcement is not being done so we are looking into that," she said in a press conference after attending the launch of the Malaysian Plastics Recycling Industry White Paper at Monash University in Subang Jaya today.
In Sept 2015, it was announced that there would be a mandatory waste separation initiative, under the BN government, where the public will have to separate their waste at home before it is collected.
The public was given a grace period of six months after the initial announcement, with enforcement supposedly taking effect after that.
However, that initiative failed to take off, due to public apathy and lack of enforcement, among other reasons.
Zuraida said she would like to restart this initiative again, as part of the national cleanliness policy.
Her ministry is already working with waste collection concessionaires such as Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, Environment Idaman Sdn Bhd and SWM Environment Sdn Bhd in kickstarting this initiative.
"I have already asked them to identify the residential areas in their purview so that we can start by at least 2020.
"And of course, the concessionaires will have to come up with the infrastructures and the supporting materials such as providing rubbish cans or plastic or whatever so they can separate the rubbish and it has to go along with some kind of legal imposition," she explained.
When asked what kind of penalties will be involved, she said, "It would be like, we do not collect your rubbish and you live with your rubbish".
She said other countries such as Japan and Finland took decades to successfully implement waste separation at home, but Malaysia should not take that long.
"I don't think Malaysia should be taking that long, we already have some of the examples and how they do it and we have to cut short the time.
"If we wait for 40 years, I don't know what is going to happen to this country," she said.
Turning trash into cash
On a different matter, Zuraida said there is a need for a separate national policy on plastic waste management.
"As I go deeper and deeper into this industry, I feel there is a need for us to come up with a clearer policy, with a clearer direction and mechanism and also the Acts that we need to streamline," she said.
With the launch of the Malaysian Plastics Recycling Industry White Paper, she said it would lighten her ministry's work in coming up with a guideline to improve the plastic recycling industry.
At the same time, Zuraida said there is an initiative from her ministry to educate communities on how to "turn trash into cash".
There is currently a pilot project being carried out in five areas in her constituency in Ampang since two months ago, she said.
"We have teams going down and teaching how to go about separating their rubbish and where to sell their rubbish to, where to make money out of their rubbish and after that, for food waste, we teach them how to compost things.
"Apart from turning trash into cash, some of them also do some recycled products, but most of them, we teach them how to turn it into cash. Sell it to the recyclers and make money out of it," she said.
After the ministry team teaches the community in a one-off programme, it is the local community who must continue doing it on an ongoing basis, she said.
She is hoping to use the pilot project in Ampang to come up with a standard operating procedure (SOP) which can be used in other local council areas as well.
Hopefully, she said, the SOP will be completed by December. - Mkini
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