Malaysians, like many other developing countries, dispose of tens of thousands of tonnes of waste yearly and this is putting a strain on our landfills, whereby we are fast running out of land that is suitable to be turned into landfills for our rubbish.

One great way to minimize the amount of waste that goes into landfills is to recycle parts of our rubbish like glass, plastic bottles and such. In order to make rubbish recycling easier, faster and more efficient, the Malaysian government is trying to get individual citizens to cooperate by separating their rubbish.

With effect from 1st September 2015, the Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government introduced waste separation. However, only certain places have put this into compulsory effect, including Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Pahang, Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah and Perlis.

In short, if you live in these states, you will soon be expected to sort your rubbish, if you are not already doing so. However, some places seem stricter in their implementations compared to others. This depends on which contractor is responsible to collect waste in your area.

According to this new ruling, the rubbish in your home should be separated into two main groups, wet rubbish and dry rubbish.

Wet rubbish is defined as organic and kitchen waste like leftover food, dirty diapers and other damp or wet materials.

Dry rubbish include relatively clean solid objects that can be recycled. Dry rubbish can be further divided into sub categories, namely:
• Paper ( receipts, cardboard boxes, old books, drink boxes, etc)
• Plastic ( plastic bottles, plastic bags, cleaned plastic food containers, etc.)
• Others ( glass, ceramics, aluminium, metals, electronics, fabrics, aerosol cans, furniture, etc)

According to the ruling, all wet rubbish should be put inside the rubbish bin near your home, where as all the dry rubbish should be separated into different plastic bags and placed beside the rubbish bin.

It is not necessary to use different coloured plastic bags to separate your dry rubbish, but some areas have contractors that are rather strict so you have to follow their instructions. An example for colour coded waste disposal are :
• Black bags: wet rubbish
• White bags : paper
• Blue bags: plastic
• Green bag: others

As of now the rubbish collection system follows the 2+1 schedule, whereby dry waste will be collected once a week whereas wet rubbish will be collected twice a week.

For high-rise buildings in the affected areas, different trash bins will be allocated for the communal trash collection area whereas the JMB in gated and guarded neighbourhoods will allocate individual rubbish bins to each house.

For now, implementation is still lax but beginning in April 2016, fines of RM50 will be imposed on residents who fail to separate their waste. A second offense will earn you a fine of RM100 and a subsequent one will be RM500 up to a maximum of RM1000.