Solid waste handling needs sustainable solution: Sepa
Published on: Wednesday, September 09, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Environment Protection Association (Sepa) believes City Hall lacks a proper guideline to manage solid waste. Its President Lanash Thanda said it is still unaware whether any standards are in place after a study report was released on the Kayu Madang landfill in 2012. She said the report included several recommendations on dealing with such waste and noted that waste separation had always been an issue at the landfill.
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"What we know is that currently, the site is not being managed sustainably and there is no separation of waste," she said. "Sepa also discussed this with the Mayor two years ago and provided alternative sustainable and economically viable solutions, of which none was being implemented," she added.Sepa made this claim following a City Hall directive in July that tyre dealers are required to cut down all used tyres before disposing them into the said landfill. The instruction was not received well by the West Coast, Kudat and Interior Tyre Dealer Association, which had on Monday challenged the logic behind the directive.
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According to Lanash, when the 2002 study was carried out back then, local councils were without any official guideline to handle solid wastes, leaving the Local Government and Housing Ministry to rely on the advice of the Health Department on such issue. She noted the statements from the tyre dealer association were valid concerns, adding that if they are forced to return all the used tyres back to their customers, the "existing problem will end up being worse."
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Lanash suggested City Hall and its partners consider looking into the studies carried out by the Environment Department and local universities on recycling to deal with the problem. She also proposed that permits and licences be given directly to genuine companies that are committed in sustainable green economy. On the other hand, Lanash said City Hall should have engaged and consulted stakeholders before carrying out any change in policy. She said it was better to identify the problem and deal it in a sustainable manner, rather than "imposing ad-hoc solution that does not solved the problem," which is being carried out at present. "I am sure City Hall has its own justification and would have carried out its own study first, but it makes more sense to implement solutions together with stakeholders directly affected by the directive," she said.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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