A letter to the Municipal Council (MPSJ)

As I accumulate all the recyclables that I can, I wondered whether if it would be a lot easier to have a community recycle bins nearby, especially at my apartment area. I also considered the potential of the 'wet' food waste that could be good compost fertilizers. The only problem is space. Having to live in a compact apartment makes my salvation to the environment, almost impossible!!!. So I wrote to MPSJ, thanks to their helpful website. I made a suggestion that there should be some recycle bins at my apartment and there should be a separation between the 'wet' rubbish and the 'dry' ones. If the rubbish are separated, then waste management would be easier to be handled. The 'wet' rubbish could be collected to make compost while the 'dry' ones could be sorted out for recycling. I had that idea when I was watching TV the other day about waste management on a talk show with Aziz Desa. The guest , an officer from waste management company said that if the household waste are mixed together, then it would be very impossible to separate the recyclables from the non-recyclables. Even the 'wet' rubbish could be separated to organics such as food waste from the non-organics like medicine or toxic waste. It sounded so simple, right? So with that suggestion to the municipal council, I waited impatiently for their reply-hoping that maybe they have some sort of program that are already running that I didn't know of. Three days later, I received not e-mail but snail mail from the public relations of MPSJ. The letter was very brief.

It wrote:

"For your information, the council have already provided recycle bins in places nearby your area, like the one near the park. You may send the recyclables to those places. For making compost, you do not need a big area to work with but you can create compost in garden pots or plastic bags."

I was not satisfied by the reply. Yeah, they did answered my queries, but it didn't solve the problem. The recycle bins are a 5km away! I want it to be just below my apartment so that everyone in the neighbourhood could do their part. Another thing is, I am not interested in making compost, I am interested in giving away my fresh organic food waste to some garden nursery or anyone that would want to make compost. Rather than throwing it all away to the landfill and promote toxic gas emissions. By that letter, I was a little disappointed that the council did not show any extra effort on assisting their fellow residents that are offering ways to help the environment. At the same time, I thought maybe there are not enough awareness in the community or in our society. "Where there is demand, there is supply.."Maybe there isn't enough people that are writing to the council about how to take care of the environment. Maybe individual effort is not enough. We need a community.

For you who have read this post, I would really like to hear your opinion. Is there something else that I should do instead?