Do you remember tossing something away today? If you are like most people, you probably did – and several times too. However, is that really a problem?
Take a look in your bin and you’d notice a single, main material amongst the pile of other recyclables, plastic. From beautifully coloured packaging to single-use plastic bags and cutlery, plastic’s inexpensive and versatile nature makes it the leading material choice amongst manufacturers. However, plastic also takes up to 1000 years to decompose, meaning that you can probably still find the pocket comb you saw your grandfather used as a child laying in a landfill – given you try hard enough. Plastic’s lasting nature probes a serious international concern, as according to WWF, roughly 300 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year with much of it dumped into landfills or polluting the seas (source).
Waste management is a global crisis. After China, a big player in the global recycling system, banned plastic waste imports in 2018 (source), Malaysia alongside a few other Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia and Vietnam have increased their import of recyclable waste. Following the ban in China, the 10 biggest exporters of plastic waste have supplied to Malaysia at an exponential increase, jumping from 316,600 tonnes of plastic waste in 2017 to 456,000 tonnes in a short seven months between January and July 2018 (source), opening the market for recycling in Malaysia. However, are we ready?
Apart from plastic, Malaysia’s overall waste production and management is still a concern. According to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, 60% of Malaysia’s 32 million population fail to dispose of garbage properly, making it susceptible to ending up as street litter or disposed of in unregulated and unsanitary dumps (source). Malaysians are yet to understand that trash is not mere litter, and carries the composition of toxic poison. According to estimates made by the World Bank, each Malaysian produces an estimated 1.52kg of waste daily, a figure estimated to rise to 1.9kg by 2025 (source). Anticipating a 25% rise in accumulated waste by 2025, more effort must be made to not only ensure the country stays clean but also shield Malaysia from serious health, safety, and environmental consequences. More worryingly, although the World Bank quotes 15-20% of other developing countries recycle their waste (source), Malaysia is a far lag behind, estimated to recycle around only 5% of total waste. Given the Ministry of Housing and Local Government still holds its strive to increase recycling levels to 20% (source), the recycling industry in Malaysia has much room for growth.
So, who would help Malaysia tackle the processing of our waste, given this huge potential for growth? Emulating the values of sustainability across the economic, environmental and social sectors, we find ourselves in support of Borneo Waste Industries (BWI). Being a company striving for economically viable waste management projects in Sabah, BWI aims to reduce the waste sent to landfills and expand the lifespan of the Kayu Madang Sanitary Landfill (KMSL) site whilst managing leachate generation sustainably. How so? BWI targets to design, build, finance and operate an Integrated Waste Management Processing Plant (IWMPP), all through recycling and recovering activities to preserve landfill space, prevent hygiene hazards by ensuring adequate treatment of organic waste, reduce carbon footprint by eliminating methane emission, reducing wastewater generation, and promoting the use of recyclable materials. Through the selling of products such as recovered plastics, organic fertiliser, ferrous metal, and other recyclables, BWI is optimistic of the company’s position, especially after securing the incoming waste at a low cost of below RM15 per tonne.
In the long-run, BWI aims to provide other services such as generating renewable energy by installing large solar power plants and waste to energy facilities. This goal is in line with the projection trend set by our neighbour Singapore, whereby 38% of the waste generated in 2018 was sent to one of Singapore’s four waste-to-energy incineration plants to be burnt to ash, further reducing the volume of trash heading to landfills by as much as 90% (source).
With more facts and figures solidifying the crisis of waste and its potential, many of those informed are readily opting to embrace more environmental responsibility and adopt a modern-minimalist lifestyle. Although the overall attitude towards achieving a zero-waste lifestyle in societal levels may be a far reach in Malaysia, being an environmentalist who supports sustainability isn’t seen as being a wannabe hippie anymore. Thus, why not give nature a chance and invest BWI?
