Ever since I got to know the affable Don and Mylene about 3 years ago, I’ve been an ardent recycler.
I’ve turned one room in my apartment into a store room of sorts to keep my piles of newspapers, glass bottles, tin cans, plastic containers and cardboard boxes – heck I even save egg shells! By the way, it’s believed that crushing egg shells and spreading it in corners will prevent geckos from coming into your house. I’ve yet to do that because unlike other people, I really don’t mind geckos. They help eat up mosquitoes. Of course once in a while I curse like hell because of the geckos’ droppings on window sills and such, but in general they’re rather well tolerated in my home.
Saving recyclables is one thing. The other is finding the right place to send these items to. I used to collect a mountainload before I cart them off to the Rukun Tetangga in Sungai Nibong. That’s the nearest recycling drop-off centre I could find.
The Petronas station which is right in front of my residential area has recycling bins but they’re not recyclable-friendly at all (these are the ones which look like regular green trash bins)! The slots are too small sometimes for the items.
But thanks to some sleuthing around and asking Mylene, I found a place that’s even easier to drop off my recyclables and it’s right in USM itself. Yes, the USM campus.
Don and Mylene worked closely with USM to teach them how to implement the recycling project without needing recycling bins, without creating a rubbish heap and with more active community participation.
So every last Thursday of the month, you can drop off your old newspapers, old glass bottles, plastics whatever have you at the temporary tent which is set up just before Desasiswa Harapan, near the lake.
The tent is open from 8am to 2pm according to Hamoon, one of the volunteers manning the tent. Hamoon and his team are from USM’s Corporate and Sustainable Development Division. At 2pm, a lorry will come to take the recyclables away.
If you have been looking high and low for a recycling place which doesn’t look like a dumpster, come support this fantastic endeavour. It’s good for mother nature and definitely good for you too.
We just dropped off some cardboard boxes (remnants of moving office) this afternoon just as the lorry came by to pick the recyclables.
I’m rather proud and happy that USM is taking this seriously after all the effort put in by Don and Mylene in teaching this system.
(If you want this retired couple to give a talk at your taman or factory or association, just invite them and they’ll come to teach you how you can recycle and become a good corporate citizen or a good community citizen too. Or check out where they’ll speak at next and you can pick up good tips too.)
This is what my alma mater is doing – encouraging the whole campus to recycle! What a brilliant idea especially that USM is branded often as a gorgeous, green campus!
The next recycling drop off date is 27 December 2007. I am sure you would have lots to recycle after all that Christmas partying!
penang has the highest amount of trash produced per head but also the highest recycling rate in the country. people are aware of recycling but to lazy to execute them.
“want to keep rubbish then bring here and there so mafan”
come to think of it, if we recycle so much yet produce even more waste means like waste of efforts kan? we should start producing less trash
Hi u-jean: Yes, if only people could be less pampered and think of the future. I was just talking to Don last night and he says that people just can’t be bothered unless they live next to a rubbish dump. Only then will they protest like mad. Otherwise, what’s not in front of me, I don’t care. You are so right. Let’s stop buying so much rubbish and try to be ‘leaner’ users.
Ya lah! I blogged about this some time back and it’s quite a chore trying to find some place to recycle. And it’s funny how Malaysia tries to promote recycling with all the GREEN DAY stuff and all. Won’t work when nobody knows where to recycle. I searched online too but came up with nothing.
i m keeping more carboard of boxes and others boxes too… my housemate start thinking i am a freak now… hahaha…~ also keep those cans. newspapers, magazines, i think Malaysia should really work hard on this, i really salute with japanese, even the gravy that you left over, if is a sticky type, you still need to use chemicals to turn it hard and throw with rubbish, not just pour into ur sink… taiwan also doing well now, when is our turn?
Hi marsha: Ya lor, all this about being green and YET the difficulty of locating a recycling station or place. And the Petronas bins don’t help much. So small!
Hoyoyi: Good for you. Keep and keep like me lah. We’re recycling hamsters I think. We keep so much of ‘useful trash’. Malaysia needs a kick in the butt when it comes to recycling! We’re so 3rd world when it comes to technologies like these.