Story by Danny Ooi
PENANG Green Council, via PGC Strategies Sdn Bhd, had from July 29 till Sept 29 carried out a study on the perception of Penang residents towards recycling at source and recycling activities.This study aimed to gather feedback through questionnaires distributed at shopping malls, wet markets, schools and also through online survey. A total of 1,484 respondents took part in the survey.
The results showed that majority of the respondents understood the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (3R ) concept and practise it in their daily lives.Most of the respondents separate recyclable items such as paper (80.20%) and newspapers (76.9%).
However, the rate for electronic waste is lower at 35%. “Regarding the practice of 3R to reduce waste, the result shows that the implementation of ‘No Free Plastic Bag Day’ since July 6, 2009 is considered successful based on 80.7% of the respondents
who brought along their own bags for shopping,” exco for Local Government, Traffic Manangement and Flood Mitigation Chow Kon Yeow told a pressconference at Komtar on Nov 11.“Apart from this, the study also found only 25.1% of the respondents practise food waste composting.Two reasons identified are not having enough space for composting activity (56.5%) and the lack of knowledge on how to compost (49.4%),” he added.Also present was PGC general manager Thing Siew Shuen.“The majority of respondents (86.5%) supported the law to be enforced to increase recycling rate in Penang. The majority believe that in general Penang residents are supportive of the state government’s vision of mandatory waste segregation at source in June 2016,” Chow, who is also PGC vice-chairman,said.
He commented that in Penang, a total of 656,090 tonnes of waste was generated in 2014 and an average of 1,700 – 1,800 tonnes of waste are sent to Pulau Burung landfill daily.
It costs between RM100 and RM120 to collect,transport and treat a tonne of waste.The estimated landfill life span is 42 years.
“Respondents were asked to suggest options for waste management systems in Penang when the Pulau Burung Landfill reaches its lifespan. Some 70% of respondents suggested strengthening of waste separation at source/3R policies and practices, 66.3% waste-to-energy technology in Pulau Burung Landfill as an option, and only 37.70% suggested a new sanitary landfill in Penang,” Chow
said.He added the results from the survey will be taken into consideration during the policy making process of the mandatory waste segregation at source
Good support for waste separation at source
