Malaysia: UK plastic waste found near Ipoh

Teoh Pei Ying New Straits Times 27 May 19;

KUALA LUMPUR: Plastic waste from Britain intended for recycling had been found dumped at a wasteland near Ipoh.

A British daily quoted a report by BBC, which featured British TV presenter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall discovering a 6m-high mound of plastic waste deep in the jungle of Perak.

Daily Mail Online reported that the environmental catastrophe “has the fingerprints of British supermarkets and council recycling departments” all over it.

“It’s like some dystopian nightmare… a plastic planet,” Fearnley-Whittingstall, who is also a celebrity chef, was quoted as saying.

According to the same report, Fearnley-Whittingstall also spotted British local authority-branded recycling bags, which suggested that householders dutifully filling their green bins in the belief they were helping the environment had been lied to.

“When we put this in our recycling bin back in the United Kingdom, we think we’re doing the right thing. I do my recycling and I feel good about it. At least I used to. I don’t feel so good now. I feel embarrassed, I feel ashamed, I feel angry, I feel I’ve been lied to,” he said.

Fearnley-Whittingstall pulled out plastic bags and packaging from M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose.

Daily Mail Online reported that among the tonnes of supermarket waste were local council recycling bags, split or torn, suggesting that they were used for their intended purpose by well-meaning Britons.

Last year, 665,000 tonnes of plastic waste were exported by the UK. Until 2018, China was the biggest recipient. However, the Chinese government recently imposed a ban on the export.

Malaysia now takes in a large amount of plastic waste from the British. The country took in 130,000 tonnes last year.

The report will be shown in a three-part BBC documentary co-hosted by Fearnley-Whittingstall and Countryfile’s Anita Rani on June 10.

No pile of trash found in Ipoh jungles, says DOE
The Star 27 May 19;

IPOH (Bernama): There is no unmanaged plastic waste dump in the jungles here as claimed by British media, says the Department of Environment (DOE).

Its director Norazizi Adinan said the pile of rubbish in pictures, which went viral on social media, was actually collected on the site of a company that processes waste as fuel.

"The company operates at the IGB Industrial Area in Tasek and has not violated any regulations," he said when asked to comment on the Daily Mail Online report about a six-meter deep plastic waste dump in the jungles here.

Norazizi said the premises was operating legally and had a licence from the Ipoh City Council which was monitoring the operations in the area to ensure that the company abided by the Environment Quality Act 1974.

Meanwhile, Resourceco Asia (M) Sdn Bhd operations director K. Muralindran said the rubbish at the site was estimated to be two tonnes which has been collected since the beginning of this year.

He said the company which had been in operations since 2011 collected garbage such as plastics and fabrics to be processed into fuel for use in cement processing plants.

"We are the first such company in Malaysia and processing waste into fuel actually helps to protect the environment, better than dumping waste at the disposal sites," he said.

He said each month, his company buys between three and 4.5 tonnes of garbage from various industries and commercial bodies for recycling.

On the claims by the British media, Muralindran did not rule out the possibility that a group of four foreigners had entered the collection site last December.

"We invited them to come to the office to give them a brief description of what really happens but they refused and proceeded to the disposal site to take pictures using drones," he said.

He added that a police report of the group had been lodged on Dec 14 at the Kampung Tawas police station. - Bernama


What dump site? DoE swats away British media claim of giant Ipoh waste heap
The alleged “six metre-deep plastic waste dump” cited by the BBC and Daily Mail Online is actually a waste material site operated by a legitimate company which processes garbage into fuel, Bernama reported. BERNAMA photo
New Straits Times 27 May 19;

IPOH: The Department of Environment (DoE) has strongly denied recent claims by British media outlets that a huge, unmanaged plastic waste dump sits in a jungle just outside of the city, here.

The alleged “six metre-deep plastic waste dump” cited by the BBC and Daily Mail Online is actually a waste material site operated by a legitimate company which processes garbage into fuel, Bernama reported.

“The company operates in the IGB Industrial Area in Tasek, and has not violated any regulations,” said the department’s director, Norazizi Adinan.

He said the company – Resourceco Asia (M) Sdn Bhd – has been operating legally since 2011; is being monitored by the Ipoh City Council; and abides by the Environment Quality Act 1974. It is not a fly-by-night outfit operating under jungle cover.

The company, which collects discarded plastics and fabrics for processing into fuel or for use in cement processing plants, hosts approximately two tonnes of waste products at its site.

Each month, the company buys between three and 4.5 tonnes of garbage from various industries and commercial bodies for recycling.

As for the supposed exposé by the British media, Resourceco Asia said a group of four foreign reporters entered its collection site last December.

“We invited them to come to the office to give them a brief description of what happens (here), but they refused and proceeded to the disposal site to take pictures using drones,” said the company’s operations director, K. Muralindran.

He added that Resourceco Asia had lodged a police report on the incident at the Kampung Tawas police station on Dec 14.

‘Plastic jungle’ a legal factory
The Star 28 May 19;

IPOH: A controversy is brewing over towering mounds of plastic waste in what a British news website claims to be a jungle but is actually the storage area of a recycling factory in an industrial zone.

Reporters who went to the site at the IGB Industrial Area in Tasek saw plastic, cardboard and fabric waste piled up higher than a man’s height and on area almost half as big as a football field.

But while the website claimed the plastic waste was dumped in Malay­sia from overseas, Perak Environ­ment Department insisted the premises operates legally, with the factory manager saying it no longer imports plastic waste and only processes it as fuel.

Perak Environment Department director Norazizi Adinan said the report by Daily Mail was not factually right.

“The premises is licensed by the Ipoh City Council. We monitor it regularly to ensure it adheres to the Environmental Quality Act,” he said in a message to the media.

The Daily Mail Online quoted a BBC trailer from a three-part documentary that shows celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall discovering mountains of plastic waste from Britain intended for recycling but is instead dumped in Malaysia.

The chef has apparently found plastic packaging of well known British brands among the trash.

Greenpeace Malaysia campaigner Heng Kiah Chun said they found the mounds of plastic after getting a tip-off that waste was being shipped from Klang to Ipoh.

“We have only identified one location so far. We then shared the location with the BBC film crew who went there on their own,” he said, adding that the visit by the BBC occurred about six months ago.

Malaysia or other countries, said Heng, should not be used as dumping grounds, adding that developed nations should stop putting their responsibility on others.

“They should put in place policies to reduce single-use plastics with the aim of a complete end,” he said, adding that only about 9% of plastic waste was recycled globally.

“About 12% is incinerated and the remaining 79% ends up in landfill or the natural environment.

“This is a broken system and it is also clear recycling alone cannot fix our plastic problem,” he said.

Meanwhile, plastic recycling com­­­­pa­ny Resourceco Asia (M) Sdn Bhd operations director K. Muralindran thinks that some of the footage from the trailer were taken from his plastic waste storage area.He said there was a trespassing incident involving four Mat Salleh (Caucasians) and three Malay­sians in December.

“One of our security guards saw them and reported to me. They had cameras and were flying drones.

“I approached them, wanting to explain our operations at the factory but they declined, saying that they had to be elsewhere,” he said.

His factory, which started in 2011, sources plastic waste from 50 companies nationwide.

“We get the waste daily, averaging some 4,000 tonnes per month

“We don’t know where the companies get the waste but they are responsible for sending it to us for recycling,” he said.

“We take this waste, turn it into processed engineered fuel (PEF) and sell this to cement factories to replace coal,” he said, adding that about 90,000 tonnes of the solid fuel could be produced annually.

“We did import waste from Aus­tralia in 2015 but stopped doing so after being told by the state Environ­ment Department,” he said, claiming about 97% of the waste would be recycled, with the remaining 3% consisting of rejected materials.

“This also means we have stopped some 97% of waste from turning up at landfills,” he said, adding that the Department of Environment conducted periodic checks on the factory.

“We also send them monthly reports,” he said, adding that he would welcome any environmental groups to engage with them.

“What we are doing is quite new and I can understand if people find the mounds of plastic waste an eyesore,” he said.

Under the PEF method, various non-recyclable waste materials are separated and shredded several times before being eventually produced into fuel.