Confessions of An Environmental Student: Who Collects Your Rubbish?

I remembered that when I was in primary school we had rubbish collection every day outside the house. There will be a lorry with compactor at the behind and several men in uniforms fetching bags of rubbish from each rubbish bin and throwing them into the lorry (now the men will come first to gather rubbish from a few bins at several sites along the road so that when the lorry arrives they can pick up the whole heap of rubbish at one go so that the lorry does not have to stop house by house). I would wait at the house gate and looked at the compactor to see whether I have any chance to witness the operation of the compactor. It sounds silly but I enjoyed that a lot at that time, hahaha.

Besides the fact that it is a bit too deep, it
really protects the content from rain and strays.
(image taken from Epsom Ewell website)

My family and I moved to our new home in Nibong Tebal when I was in Standard Two. Every new house in the residential area received a uniform green bin with a attached lid with two wheels underneath. Well I didn't really look into the details of how rubbish collection works and what I knew was those people are from Penang Municipal Council and they came every day. Years later, without my realisation, the frequency of rubbish collection was reduced to three days per week (I started to be away from home since 2012 to study in Selangor). And the green bin that we used to have was gone (stolen maybe?) that we used a paint bin as a substitute which will be placed at the roadside only when there will be a rubbish collection service to avoid strays from messing with the rubbish.

National Solid Waste Management Department was established in 2007 under the Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government under the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 (Act 672). I just found out about the existence of such a department in Malaysia through the subject Integrated Solid Waste Management that I am taking this semester. Besides that, through the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Corporation Act 2007 (Act 673), Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation (PPSPPA) was established to enforce Act 672. (this was the first time I study law and reading the text was really painful!!!)

(logo taken from PPSPPA website)

What is Act 672 about?

It is a law with the objectives to take care of the rubbish (it is called solid waste, in a scientific and legislative way LOL) management and also public cleansing (grass cutting, drain cleaning, street sweeping etc.) to maintain the proper sanitation around the country. This Act is enforced in the whole Peninsular Malaysia, Federal Territories of Putrajaya and Federal Territories of Labuan.

According to the Act, solid waste =

Scrap materials or unwanted surplus and rejected things
Broken or contaminated things
Things that need to be disposed of according to law

And controlled solid waste are those produced from:

Commercial (shopping complexes etc.)
Construction sites
Household (yes from our homes)
Industrial (factories etc.)
Institutional (schools, hospitals etc.)
Imported (some wastes are imported from other countries to be processed here)
Public (parks, markets etc.)

This Act will take care of everything related to rubbish except a few aspects which will be taken care of by other laws such as scheduled (hazardous) waste [Act 127], sewage [Act 655] amd radioactive waste [Act 304].

A rubbish truck with compactor to compress the rubbish in order to reduce the volume.
(image taken from Virginia Richmond website)

Rules to follow!

After reading through the text I extracted a few things that we should know in the Act:

1) Without approval, we cannot set up, alter or close down solid waste management facilities
2) You need to get a license to provide rubbish collection and public cleansing services or to operate solid waste management facilities
3) Charges can be imposed on us for the services
4) There is a court named Tribunal for Solid Waste Management Servies (I couldn't get any info on this from the internet, will try to ask my friends taking Law currently)
5) We must make sure that the rubbish we produced does not 'escape' from its proper place
6) We cannot disturb the rubbish placed in the rubbish bins except charity groups that collect recyclable materials
7) We can be asked to remove the rubbish if we created the nuisance
8) We cannot cause damage to any related facilities and vehicles (of course!)
9) Waste reduction, reuse and recycling regulations will be enforced

A photo taken during a field trip to Tasik Chini for the solid waste management session.

So, who collects our rubbish?

Due to privatisation, some of the states' solid waste management is carried out by private companies as listed below:

Environment Idaman (Kedah & Perlis)
SWM Environment (Negeri Sembilan, Melaka & Johor)
Alam Flora (Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territories of Putrajaya & Pahang)
Trienekens (Sarawak)

Others are being managed by local authorities such as city councils or municipal councils under the state governments:

Penang state government
Perak state government
Kelantan state government
Terengganu state government
Sabah state government
Labuan Corporation