KL heaped with rubbish

Stories by BAVANI M 

bavanim@thestar.com.my

Photos by SHAHRUL FAZRY

Filthy: Overflowing garbage bins like this is common in back alleys in Bukit Bintang.

 

Migrant workers are contributing to the large amounts of rubbish in the city. According to Alam Flora, the capacity can fill up one football field every day.

ALAM Flora Sdn Bhd has compiled a list of top 10 rubbish hot spots in the city that contribute to some 100 tonnes of domestic waste per day.

The waste company has found a correlation between the hot spots and an overwhelmingly large population of foreign migrant workers.

According to the company’s statistics, the country’s capital city is producing over 2,500 tonnes of domestic waste per day. This figure does not include the industrial waste which make up to about 1,000 tonnes.

Mohd Zain: You can fill up one football field a day with 15 compactor lorries to transport the waste.

 

“To put that figure into perspective, you can fill up one football field a day with 15 compactor lorries to transport the waste,’’ said Alam Flora chief executive officer Mohd Zain Hassan.

Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) spends a whopping RM140mil a year to dispose of this rubbish.
Mohd Zain said areas such as Chow Kit, Petaling Street, Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin popularly known as Jalan Silang, Jalan Metro Perdana and Bukit Bintang, which have a large concentration of foreign workers, were generating huge amounts of rubbish that end up in landfills and clog our drains and rivers.

A check by StarMetro at some of these spots found that it is not too far-fetched to say that foreigners outnumber the locals.

In Jalan Silang for instance, the entire stretch of pre-war shophouses are run and operated by Bangladeshi and Nepalese businessmen, while in Petaling Street, Nepalese and Myanmar workers are running the shops and stalls on behalf of their employers.

Over in Chow Kit and Jalan Masjid India, the number of Indonesians is increasing and so is the amount of rubbish generated.

The situation is also similar in Brickfields; Indian nationals make up about 50% of the local population. During weekends, the mountains of rubbish are testament to this.

It has been reported that out of six million people in the Klang Valley, 222,843 are registered foreigners residing in Kuala Lumpur, 577,427 are illegal immigrants registered under the Home Ministry’s 6P programme, and 438,425 are illegal immigrants yet to be registered.

Wall sprayed with graffiti: The Kota Raya area across Petaling Street has become a haven for foreigners.

 

These foreigners come from Indonesia (50.9%), Bangladesh (17.4%), Nepal (9.7%), Myanmar (7.8%) and India (6.3%), while the rest from Vietnam.

“In all these countries, it is no secret that their municipal government are grappling with never-ending challenges of waste management,” said Mohd Zain.

“Some may think I am stereotyping, but the figures speak for themselves. The amount of rubbish collected from these 10 spots are increasing.

“Jalan Alor in Bukit Bintang is a typical example of rubbish being dumped illegally. I have personally witnessed rubbish being thrown from the top of flats, left to rot all over the place, bus stops, drains and back alleys,’’ he said.

“Over here, our trucks are going in and out round the clock, starting from 6.30am.

“We have to place 80 Alam Flora workers and contractors just to handle this area alone.

“We only need 60 for the entire Putrajaya, but here, it is a huge responsibility,’’ added Mohd Zain.

Over at Kota Raya and Lebuh Pudu, the buildings are defaced with graffiti, grime and grease as well as dried-up paan juice (betel leaf juice). In Masjid India, rubbish can be found all over the place.

While reiterating that people in general did not take waste disposal seriously, Mohd Zain stressed that the growing amount of waste from these hot spots was causing the company much concern.
“It is easy to just clean up after them but we are not doing anyone any favour as people are just indifferent when it comes to disposing rubbish.

“Bad habits are hard to break but we are trying to change the mindset with programmes such as the KL Cleanliness Blueprint to make KL a sustainable city,’’ he said.

Mohd Zain added that the blueprint had been implemented in Bukit Bintang and would soon include Chow Kit as well as Petaling Street.

“The programme’s aim is to get private companies and traders associations to work together and keep the city clean.

“However, my people are still seeing cases of rubbish thrown into drains and rivers,” said Mohd Zain.

StarMetro had reported that according to DBKL Civil Engineering and Drainage Department director Tan Keng Chok, under the River of Life Project, RM10.6mil had been spent by the Federal Government to install 124 additional rubbish traps to add to the current 128 already in place at the Klang River.

This does not include the millions of ringgit that DBKL spends to maintain and remove floating rubbish from traps.

“We hope to work with foreign embassies and employers as well as their workers to instil a sense of responsibility and civic consciousness.

“But at the end of the day, we need enforcement to really make a difference,’’ added Mohd Zain.


TheStar online
Monday 3 June 2013.