Government must play its part to ensure success of recycling
THE Petaling Jaya Municipal Council is seemingly doing a commendable job at encouraging recycling.
But I think it will not succeed because of the present economics of recycling.
To recycle according to the scheme of MPPJ, each household has to pack refuse into five plastic bags for different wastes — kitchen refuse (organic material), plastics, metals, glass, and paper.
We have to buy five types of plastic bags and throw them away everyday. This is expensive and no one in his right mind will do it. Now we only use one bag for all refuse.
Those who collect the recycled material gain whereas the public has nothing to gain.
The Government should enact laws and give tax incentives to encourage recycling.
Recycling should be made a profitable activity.
The public can collect and separate household wastes and sell it to people who either go from house to house like the collector of old newspapers or take it to shops that deal in recycled materials.
An entire recycling industry should be encouraged with proper laws and tax incentives.
Industry should be encouraged to make use of recycled material wherever possible. Excessive packaging should be discouraged.
Unnecessary embellishments of packages would save ink and bring down costs.
Wherever possible taxes should be introduced to cut down on packaging and the use of virgin materials.
The current excessive use of plastic bags should be discouraged by putting a heavier tax on such plastic materials.
The use of brown recycled paper bags of yore for shopping should be encouraged. Industries should be encouraged by the appropriate incentives to use recycled materials, and abattoir waste (blood and non-consumable parts of animal carcasses) can be converted to compost and sold to farmers.
We need the Government to put a hand in the effort of recycling.
If the initiative is not taken by the Government itself, efforts by local authorities and other individuals and even sectors of industry will come to nought.
M. Maniam
Petaling Jaya
Source : September 9 1993
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