More Govt support, please: Reef Check

Published on: Sunday, July 25, 2021

By: Kan Yaw Chong

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Preparing waste collected to get transported to mainland.

IT REMINDED me a shell-shock sight of bales of compressed plastic bottles in 2019! My first reaction was: “Waa, that looks familiar upon receipt last Monday of a press release entitled: ‘Reef Check Malaysia sends another 1,500kg of trash off Mantanani; calls for more government help’.”

This mountain of trash that had thrashed Mantanani is nothing new to me anymore.

On August 2019, I followed Swiss-based Race for Water crew to the island in in a maiden trip.

That was the shock cited earlier – just bales and bales of crushed plastic bottles packed under a village house near Reef Check’s Recycling Centre.

It tells you of a whooping trash problem but we didn’t know the exact magnitude then.

But now, Reef Check’s press release disclosed “35,561kg or 36 tonnes of waste collected between January and June” alone, quoting Adzmin Fatta, Reef Check Malaysia Programme Manager and leader of Cintai Mantanani designed to enhance the resilience of both the island’s community and coral reefs.

Great prevention job from an unsung NGO called Reef check Malaysia.

Imagine a collection programme that actually prevented 36 tonnes of trash which otherwise would have escaped into the beaches and sea during the first six months of 2021 alone.

The non-economic reality

But the non-economic reality of big effort caught my attention.

Which makes one wonder whether it’s true that “Trash is Cash”, that is, “there is money in recycling”, is the truth.

The reality is more like “Trash is Cost” in this particular case.

Telling it like it is, Adzmin cited January figures – “753kg of plastic bottles were sent to a recycling facility in Kota Kinabalu in return for only RM150.60 but the cost was RM120 for land transportation and RM900 for boat transportation alone, not counting labour cost!”

Clearly a totally unprofitable transaction in return for the huge effort and environmental service rendered.

Total expenditure on the project hits an average of between RM6,000 and RM8,000 per month, Adzmin noted, without citing the average monthly income.

But that the cost far exceeds the cash returns is not hard to imagine.

So far, belief in the environmental value is taking the lead to have sustained the programme, not the oft-touted value of plastic waste many hope can incentivise plastic neutral successes.

So the Reef Check Malaysia experience in Mantanani is a reality check.

Four years on, it raises question how long can Reef Check Malaysia sustain this unusual and eye-opening programme in Mantanani.

Who cares if…

What if Reef Check decides to leave? Who cares even if 36 tonnes of trash run into the sea every half a year or six tonnes per month?

Doesn’t that sound an alarming bell that eventually there might be more plastic than fish in Sabah’s seas?

Reef Check Malaysia General Manager, Julian Hyde, calls for more government support to prevent that day.

“Collaboration between government agencies, tour operators and the local community is crucial to ensure the waste management system is successful in the long term,” he said.

So far, external funds had kept it going.

“The programme started in 2018 with funding from Yayasan Hasanah, and later, the UNDP-GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP),” Hyde noted.

“Currently, the Coca Coca Foundation is supporting the waste management programme, providing funding until October this year.”

October is just three months away!

Thinking ahead

The spectre of the wherewithal of a long-term waste management system has arisen.

“Reef Check Malaysia is working with the Kota Belud District Council and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to secure long-term financial support, as well as additional equipment, for the waste management programme,” Hyde noted.

“For now, Reef Check Malaysia will continue funding the programme, to provide this essential service to the community,” he assured.

And this is the issue which the press release raises in its opening paragraph.

“Small, remote islands around the world share the same problem. Lack of effective waste management. Malaysia is no exception.”

So Reef Check is in Pulau Mantanani precisely to “improve its waste management system working alongside partners and local communities,” Hyde explained.

But not many people know that Mantanani is not a single but a group of three islands with two villages on Mantanani Besar – Kg Siring Bukit and Kg Padang, populated by about 1,000 and 22km off the West Coast of Sabah with a gripping view of Mt Kinabalu.

Being cut off remotely from the mainland means “there is no piped water, no centralised sewage treatment system, no healthcare facilities, electricity from 6pm to 6am only and no waste management system in place”.

Back to history

So it had a history of open landfill on the island, open burning, burying underground and dumping into the sea.

That’s when in 2018 Reef Check Malaysia stepped foot on Mantanani to establish a Waste Management Improvement programme.

Right now, 174 households are participant of this programme serving a population of 905.

Step by step, it introduced the system in phases, teaching households how to segregate wastes, starting in the smaller village, Kg Siring Bukit.

Then, a locally-recruited waste collection team visit each house every day to collect and transport the waste to a temporary waste segregation centre for data recording, sorting and storage.

A lot of work.

Organic materials are treated or used as food for cows on the island while non-organic waste is sent off the islands to a landfill on the mainland.

Plastic bottles are sent to Reef Check’s established Mantanani Plastic Recycling Centre (MPRC) where the plastic bottles are compressed for easy transport to the mainland for recycling and plastic bottle caps are repurposed into reusable products.

Something good happened

So something beneficial had happened.

Teacher Noriazziah said: “In the past, we threw our waste to the beach, very unsightly and everyday everybody had to clean up around the house but the programme put an end to this tedious chore. I hope the programme will continue.

However, trash is not cash as idealised remains the challenge to ensure the good intention can last.

Adzmin said: “The waste management system requires significant financial support to ensure that it is consistent, organised, and effective.”

“We have to consider the costs that go into managing a system such as this – maintenance of buildings, equipment, transportation of waste to the mainland, labour costs, which is also a source of income for local islanders.

As noted earlier, just one sea plus a land trip transportation to deliver 753kg of plastic bottles to Kota Kinabalu costs RM1,020 but the recycling facility pays only RM150.60 for all that, far short of any economic or business sense.

Forever deficit spending?

So one might ask: Where is the value of plastic waste that can be leveraged to sustain such a costly waste management system?

Left alone, even as so close to Kota Kinabalu like Gaya Island, plastic wastes are just horrendous, no question about it.

But this experience suggest unlocking the value of plastic wastes may not cover the cost.

Politely, Hyde concluded:

“Mantanani is just one of many islands in Malaysia that face this issue,” she said.

“Without long term support for proper waste management, the beautiful coastal villages of Malaysia will be surrounded by waste on land and sea, creating unimaginable impacts to both communities and ecoysytems.”

Looks like the government must give islands a revisit.