turn your waste into money!

note: i realised that this post is rather long. with apology to those who get bored with a long post!

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yesterday… er… i mean tuesday (i usually write after midnight, which is consider a new day already) i attended a talk entittled ‘turn your waste into money’ which is about recycling. it was conducted by the husband and wife team, don theseira and mylene ooi, a well known recyling activist in penang.

don and mylene had been featured in the star’s paper before, in which it (star) reported that they had been recognised for their recycling efforts by ‘readers digest’.

the talk was most interesting and an eye-opener. they brought along so many items to show us… items that can be recycle and that which cannot be recycle. this was learning through visual aids! they concentrate more on recycling household waste. you’ll be amazed to hear that almost all items in the household can be recycle.

first of all of course we have the newspaper and magazines. at times you do received some of those promos flyers in your mailbox, right, and you simply throw them away in the rubbish bin. well, don’t. keep them. they are paper and can be recycle. then when you buy things, that comes in small boxes, don’t throw away the boxes. unfold and flatten the boxes. even the small little receipts you received from the supermarket, keep them for recycling! yes all these items were shown to us by don and mylene to illustrate their points.

then they move on to plastic bottles and cans. the sunsilk shampoo you bought to make you happy, the dynamo detergent that will clean white whiter than white, the car polish you bought to make your ‘second wife’ (your car lah!) sparkling new and clean, the mortein insecticide spray you had in case you can’t stand your partner’s singing, the beauty cream you bought for your wife to make sure she stays beautiful, the can of sardine, ‘ma ling’ luncheon meat, ‘campbell’ soup… any household items (in kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom) that comes in plastic or cans, do not throw away as they can be recycle.

those household items are not so ‘popular’ as recycled items, which not many people are aware of that can be recycled. most people are only aware of plastic bottles like mineral water bottles and the 1.5 litres (or is it 2?) plastic bottle of ‘gas drink’ like coke or 7-up.

then of course we have glass bottles too. we see many of them in our kitchen. like your must have ‘tau ewe’ (soy sauce!) bottle or maggi ketchup or even medicines that comes in bottles.

finally of course the most well known are those aluminium cans. and they, according to don and mylene are the most expensive.

the items that cannot be recycled which they showed to us are tetra packs. you know, some drinks like the sunquick peel fresh orange, comes in so called ‘tetra packs’. looks like cardboard from outside, inside there is a special er… wax… layer, which made it un-recyclable. tissue papers too cannot be recycle (therefore you are advised to go back to using hankerchiefs please). then of course those plastic bags you get from departmental stores/supermarkets or the plastic when you ‘ta pau’ back your char koay teow. and finally the very dangerous styrofoam, which it seems nowadays many food stall are using for ‘ta pau’. and i notice that these days hawkers stalls in penang are using styrofoam plates.

styrofoam is dangerous because it is made of a chemical call polystrene, and polystrene when absorbed through the lungs, skin, and intestines will bio-transforms into a carcinogen and a mutagenic compound. be careful of using styrofoam… especially for children. if use very often, slowly one day, you’ll discover you have cancer. children who uses it now might not have the effect now but they will notice it when they are grown up.

after telling us about what items can and cannot be recycled, they proceed to tell us how to organise a recycling programme. this is usually for big corporate organisations or hospitals, schools, colleges, churches or your resident community. you made an announcement in your say college, that you are going to start a recycling programme and invite the people to contribute items. then you designated a day in a week… or maybe a day in a month… depends on your enthusiasm or people’s response… as a day where people can send their items. and after collecting all the items, which you feel are enough to sell off to the contractors, just call them and they will come and collect the items and pay you accordingly to the kind of items and the weight. but of course you don’t stop after one collection. let it be an on-lgoing project.

don and mylene had started the recycling programme in their hometown, bukit mertajam, penang, the taman where they stay and it seemed they had generated over RM20,000 through the sale of the recycled items!! and all these money, according to them, go to charity.

of course don and mylene, after telling us about recycling, also cautioned us on taking care of the environment, like refusing to use plastic to ‘ta pau’ your hokkien mee but use tiffin carrier instead, do not use the supermarket’s plastic bag but bring along your own shopping bag, when throwing a party, do not use styrofoam plates and cups, and lots more.

you can get to read about don and mylene’s method on how to establish recycling programmes at our local recycling website, kitar semula.

there is also a ‘no incinerators’ website where don and mylene talk on recycling of household waste.

finally, do go to the internet consumer guide on recycling and read all about recycling.

it’s worth it to go on the recycling programme as no. 1 you would be helping friends to get rid of their garbage! no. 2, you are doing your part in protecting the environment, and no. 3, you are ‘earning’ money for your efforts, of which you can consider it as fund raising, either for your own organisation, or to give away as charity. oh and with that, add no. 4 – you are doing a good deed to the less fortunate!