Concept of Waste Management Assessment Answer

Assignment Task

If each one of us started changing ourselves or mending ourselves, the whole society will change. This is what I understand from above quote. This is the principle I applied in life and throughout this Mangetout Moment assignment.

Mangeout moment is basically the rush of guilt that tells you what you’re doing. The first thing that crossed my mind when I understand this term – Waste Management! In Malaysia, an average of 37,000 tons of waste is generated every day, with most of it piled up at landfills. It is estimated that an average of 20,000 tons of rubbish is collected annually from the Klang River, including plastic bottles, cans and other forms of domestic waste that can be recycled. In Kuala Lumpur itself, an average of 1.5 kilograms of waste is generated per person per day.

Although much efforts have been put in to encourage Malaysians to practice the habit of recycling, only five per cent of the garbage produced in this country end up being recycled. To improve this phenomena, Malaysian government started waste separation enforcement on 1st June 2016 comprising area of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Pahang, Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Perlis and Kedah. Technically, the Government started the practice on 1st September 2015 in stages, but enforcement only really started on 1 June. In my opinion this practice went on steadily with o reduction of 237,000 tons (13.1%) of solid waste in just four months.

Till now this initiative only applied in this 8 places. Initially it’s been said it’ll be slowly adopted into a nationwide program; however till now there are no sign of implementation in states like Selangor, Terengganu, Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak. Hence my pledge for Mangetout momentum is on individual waste management. Ill be focusing reducing plastic wastage by bringing recycle bag and also start recycling activity. As a Selangor resident I would like to take this opportunity under mangetout assignment as I’ll be prepared when the Government waste segregation program reaches Selangor.

UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS AND SETTING UP

Before proceed with the pledge I did some homework by studying the details about starting recycling process. As for bringing bag for shopping nothing complex involved. But for recycling, I need to understand the process since the waste segregation not available in Selangor and I need to prepare alternative way to carry out my recycling activities.

First of all, I explained my initiative to my family members (parents and wife). This will make the recycling process way easier since cooking/house cleaning generate more plastic waste and parents as the main person involved in this activity, will be more cautious when handling recycling items. To ease the process, I set up a recyclable box:

Why the above conversation even take place? The first few days bringing own recycle bag went on smoothly. But things get mixed up when u bring the recycle bag to kitchen but forgot to bring back to the car. To overcome this issue I had remind myself by arranging a promt. This idea gained from the fourth week lecture (Green Technology Systems). According to Dr. Zeeda, People prominently do not have negative attitudes towards protecting the environment but they do need to be reminded on these pro-environmental behaviours. So by using the promt below, it helps me to remind to bring recycle bag every time I exit the door.

‘The Backlash’ & Tough call

Things went smoothly for recycling but as number of recycle waste increases, it invites other ‘unfavorable guests’. Insects like ants, cockroach and fly started swarm around waste that contain balance food or drink residues. Almost 90% of recycle waste material is food or drink packaging. This event forced myself to discard all the waste immediately as its starts to give unpleasant smell and presence of the insects create unhygienic ambience. However I still able to segregate waste that not affected like enclosed drinking bottles and detergent bottles.

Residual wastes must be packed neatly into plastic bags or containers and placed inside trash bin and it will be collected twice a week. Whereas recycle waste must be neatly packed inside suitable plastic bags/containers and placed next to trash bin on collection day (which is only once in a week). This raise some questions. Food containers and liquid food products (exp.: soy sauce bottles, jam containers) under the recycle waste. My observation in certain place around Kuala Lumpur, residents tend to put this recycle items beside trash bin.

This creates the very same ‘backlash effect’ and create unhygienic ambience. I also notice some garbage truck operators collecting recycle items (which supposed to be collected by recycle truck operators). Unfortunately they only interest in fast cash generating items like aluminium cans and mineral bottles whereas food containers and liquid food products left to be collected by the other parties. Since it will be collected only once in a week, nearby residents left to deal with this ‘eyesore’ throughout the week. In my opinion, to overcome this issue, few steps can be taken:

Corn Starch Plastic Bags

At first glance, the corn starch bag look exactly like normal single use plastic. But when feel the texture one can easily tell the difference. Corn starch Biocompostables also known as PLA Plastics made from renewable, biodegradable corn starch. The starch is converted into a polymer. A kind of acid called polylactic acid (PLA) is made from the corn starch. This is why corn starch biocompostables are sometimes called PLA plastics. PLA plastics are molded the same way conventional plastic is. They can be molded, extruded, or shaped by heating and cooling (thermal shaping).

Curtailment Behaviour and Promt

This type of behaviour usually entails unconscious decisions, routines. Routines are activities that are repeated frequently and without conscious thinking. Not carrying recycle bag and taking single use plastic is considered unconscious habits/routine and to change this, I took few days to cope as it is difficult to change and need to be done repeatedly. Somehow I able to change this behavior with the help of a promt.

Behavioral Affordance and Observability Singapore

In Singapore there are recycle bin every 150 metres Island wide. It encourages people to develop the mindset – “out of sight, out of mind”. In this case, the faster the rubbish gets out of our sight, the faster it gets out of mind. This called Behavioral affordance, if the recycle bin not nearby it’s an infrastructure hindrance and we tend to throw recycle waste into general waste which happening in my place currently.

This Management has been solved by our PHD Experts at My Uni Paper.