economic instruments to close the gap of costs
required for proper treatment and disposal of
these wastes. We are in 2020 now and moving
towards developed nation status. We cannot
afford to continue putting all these problems
under the carpet without an effective solution.
What We Need in Future
The first thing that needs to be strengthened is
a sense of responsibility on waste from all levels
of people in Malaysia as well as the Government,
business entities and households. Mainstreaming
of waste management is important, and the
Government should emphasise that “waste is a
responsibility” and introduce a more stringent
stick approach to control the waste generators.
Awareness is important but attitude change is
more vital among the Malaysians who always take
things for granted.
When the sense of responsibility and mainstreaming
of waste management are in place,
setting of priority and increase of the willingness
to pay for proper waste management should
be enhanced. This could only be achieved with
much needed Government intervention to
impose more economic instruments such as
the product packaging law, levy and Extended
Producers’ Responsibilities (EPR) regulations
on waste management, to ensure that waste
management is a shared responsibility among
all parties. The Government should strictly follow
Waste Management Hierarchy
the waste management hierarchy in decision
making to put waste disposal through landfilling
as the lowest priority among all other strategies,
which unfortunately is the other way round at the
moment in the country.
A summary of the key issues and way forward
on future waste management in Malaysia is
presented in Table 3.
Other than the above issues summarised,
there are certainly many other challenges faced
with regards to waste management in Malaysia,
including a fundamental confusion about the
ministries dealing with waste, plastic waste or
plastic products. Which Ministry has the mandate
to ban a plastic product still remains as a myth
for many people because the Environmental
Quality Act only stipulates control on scheduled
Table 3
Attitude
Setting of Priority
Willingness to
Pay
Key Issues
Awareness of
Malaysians is not
low, it is an attitude
problem
Low priority in
decision making;
hidden problems
Low willingness
to pay for waste
management
Attitude change
Early education
Mainstreaming of waste
management
Get the focus right, not
WtW but waste as a
responsibility
Way Forward
Stick approach is needed
instead of always carrot
approach
Continuous awareness creation
Waste management hierarchy
should be followed
Shared responsibilities by all
parties
Legal instrument – EPR regulations, packaging law and levy
etc.
9