Composting Technology

MBPJ made a trip to MPSJ last week witnessing the operation of their Food Waste Composting Centre at USJ 1. It was a fruitful trip to learn the modus operandi of the waste composting programme. The machines are running below capacity now as 100 odd participating hawker stalls from 4 food courts cannot provide sufficient waste for processing. This, perhaps is a good sign as many might have reduced the food waste or started some recycling exercise at source.

Application of technology for waste composting is never a cheap affair. The cost benefit analysis showed that return on investment is not feasible as time for capital recovery is too long. It is simply not a good business investment in the short term. In longer term with the exhaustion of resources and scarcity of land as well as higher cost of operation, it is a choice that worth to explore. Having said this, social responsibility of MBPJ in ensuring a quality living environment is compelling MBPJ to explore various ways of solving the solid waste problem, even with an escalating cost.

One of the lessons learnt is the cooperation and participation of the stakeholders. Without full commitment of the waste generators, and in this case the hawkers, the composting exercise will not become easy, and at time costly. We need the hawkers to separate the waste at source and to bring their individual waste to the collection point at specific time. More than often, due to careless and "tiada apa" attitude, the waste is mixed with non organic matters that are not compost able. This will further require workers to source and separate the waste. We need the transporters to carry the waste to the composting centre on time and with care towards the environment. We need the workers to conduct the composting with due diligence and to pack the produce professionally. We need to ensure that end products are used. These processes require coordination and cooperation. With the lag back attitude of Malaysian and lack of urgency in maintenance culture, I presume plenty of capacity building programmes and continue motivation are up most important.

Wrong message for right advice

I come across this notice in a public toilet. I was attracted with the way of telling people that they do not provide toilet paper or servile for patrons. At the first glance, I thought it is very environmental friendly of saying that no paper is provided, but second thought tell me it is not "right" of asking people to use hand dryer or own tissue. Consuming tissue is a form of contributing to solid waste problem whether it is done with own paper or others. Secondly the hand dryer might have consumed a lot of energy. I thought perhaps the right message should be: "please use your handkerchief" or else do not mention "your own tissue" at all. This is not an isolated case but happen in many other occasions. For example, in asking people to observing celebration of Earth Hour, many shopping complexes are organising activities to get people to come to hold the candle light between 8.30 to 9.30pm on 27th March not knowing that for public to come over from all places, they have created higher carbon footprint. Perhaps this becomes a classic case of disseminating right message with "not so right" strategies.

What say you?

Green Awards

The 2nd Green Award 2010 is back. Invitation to all the schools in Selangor and Federal Territory were sent out last Tuesday during the Award Launching at MBPJ. The brain child of Ms Yasmin Rasyid, Founder of Ecoknights, the Award is held to raise awareness of students on environmental conservation through creative and innovative ideas. This year theme is Let's Recycle with priority given to 3R concept.

Compared to last year competition, this year will see bigger area of coverage which extended from PJ to other parts of Selangor State and Kuala Lumpur. The partners has been expanded from 4 to 7 now. The categories of two Awards remained the same with slight modification of judging. Instead of visiting to the schools at the early stage, visits will only done after the shortlisted 10 schools have began their project according to the submitted proposal.

The beauty of this project, to me is not about another green project for students, but incorporating innovation and creativity with the environmental conservation initiatives. Something that need to be strengthened as many of the environmental awareness projects have been so monotonous and so "boring" least to say. Students today need a lot of encouragement and excitement for them to be interested and got involved in a field. If the marketing of project is not in flavour to their taste and aspiration, for God sake they will not want to participate or even to know. Thereby, innovation in marketing is particularly important in which having a competition encouraging students creativity should be the way forward. Telling them what is good about environment and what should they do is not enough, but getting them to tell us what they know about environment and what they intend to do is much more challenging and could yield better result, I presume.

I am particularly happy with the progress made by Green Award. From a localised PJ initiative, it has been extended to other parts of Klang Valley. This is what I have envisioned for Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya, that is to initiate something new, out of the box and to start from small but achievable projects instead of embarking onto something big at the initial stage but unsustainable later. I hope Green Award will become a national project in years to come and I presume this will be another contribution of LA 21 PJ to our nation and sustainable development.

By the way, we are celebrating 10 years of Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya as well as in Malaysia.

Security Fund Raising Dinner

My Neighbourhood is raising fund on this coming Saturday for the security scheme project. When it comes to security and safety, everyone is concerned and nobody will dare to say NO as you might not know some unexpected encountering might have happened to you and your family members next moment of time. Currently, the residents paid RM50 per month per household for private patrolling and the payment is expected higher with the proposal of deploying more security guards and coverage of wider area and longer time. However, many are still not satisfied with the service performance of the existing company. The Committee is on the look out for other companies as well. To me, no matter how well we have done in selecting a good company, safety level is not guarantee simply because criminals are also on the look out for new opportunities for crime. We can only make things difficult for crime to commit, it is no way of achieving zero crime.

While many arguments on gated and guarded community were brought up for the past few weeks, the debate has been gone into two different end, one 100% for that and the other one was not supportive at all. Both have valid argument and strong reasons behind it. Those in support are fearful about safety for themselves and families in which many of them have been at the receiving end of crime personally or through their families members. Those opposed the scheme are reasoning it with the legal points of view. It is true that the legislation do not allow closure of access or controlled point for accessibility in a public road. It is true that placing a blockage permanently at the ingress is becoming fire and emergency hazard. I think nobody denies the possibility of danger and right of way for every individual. It is a matter of priority and scarify.

If all are sharing the vision of creating a safe community for all, then it is an obligation and responsibility for all in making all efforts for doing that. Perhaps this include controlled ingress and egress of the neighbourhood. The question is how to make it friendly to all users of the public road while maintaining high level of safety within the neighbourhood. I personally think that engaging security guards and put up a watching post at the entrance of neighbourhood is not the only solution, but an easy one through paid service. We should explore others as well. For example, making a vibrant neighbourhood with more community activities, encouraging the housewife and senior citizen to go on street for community chit-chatting and morning work out, having the voluntary patrolling scheme, organising knowing your neighbours campaign, keeping watch on any vice activities in your area, inculcating good neighbourliness and etc. It should be integrated and collectively.

Please support the Dinner as an encouragement for those making an effort for a safer community.

CSR in Water Project

I was invited as a panelist for the WATER Project Seminar yesterday at the Security Commission. This is the first time that I spoke to participants from the amongst the business sector. So often that we focus on capacity building programmes for the community sector that too little has been done for the businesses. While everyone talks about corporate social responsibility, I presume many might have heard about it, and some might have wanted to do it but many I believe do not know what should they do. Quite often we witnessed that the so-called CSR projects of the businesses none other than carrying out charity service one off activity or donating a token sum to charitable homes. I think CSR is more than that.

The Seminar provides the opportunities to panelists to talk about possible CSR initiatives for businesses. These include becoming a responsible entrepreneurs for their own production line and consumption of resources, working together with other stakeholders in conserving the rivers and drains, achieving zero waste within their own business premises, educating their staffs on river rehabilitation and many more.

A common point brought up during the discussion was the role of religion teaching in environmental awareness, attitude and mind set change of individual. All religions pay high regard to water and the need for having clean water. Thereby, conserving water and rehabilitating the rivers become every one's obligation to GOD.

A participant has suggested the role of media. It is interesting to hear a panelist of saying that media has not help in educating the general public on environmental conservation. Many of the time people complained to the media hoping that the news will be published so that the authorities concerned will rectify it. However if the people with their personal responsibility has taken their own initiative to rectify it without waiting for press coverage, then we might have educated people on the importance of environmental conservation, by every individual. I reasoned that this happened due to the media approaches on service delivery rather than environment per say.

I spoke about the role of MBPJ in rivers rehabilitation. I pointed out that role of MBPJ is to prevent pollutants from getting into the drains, the contributory of river as well as motivating partnership and participation amongst stakeholders in undertaking initiative to reduce pollution and to rehabilitate the rivers. Of course, it is a big challenge in the urban setting like PJ as many of the rivers have been concretised and turned into sewer or passage for rubbish. For example, many residents of PJ might not have known that Sungai Way, presently a big monsoon drain was a stream with clean water and abundance of fish and prawn some 40 years ago.

I saw some eager face amongst participants to emulate the model as done by GAB Foundation for the Sungai Way Rehabilitation Project. I hope the participation and contribution of businesses will fasten the process of regenerating our river to its' natural state.

Catch22@PJ:Development Planning

I have a discussion with a Councillor of MBPJ last week over participatory planning issue. She mentioned about non-tolerance of residents toward development project within the vicinity of their neighbourhood. Any remedy suggestions on the traffic and area improvement are rejected in total. While we both agreed that residents have the rights to voice their displeasure and objections, they should also propose suggestions over damage control.


The present Government is not in the blame when it comes to development projects that have been approved. They are merely finding solutions to minimise any damages, if any and to demand them to cancel out projects that have been approved before hand is not a solution itself.


So, most of the time it comes to stand still. The residents are not happy and confront with any traffic management suggestions that encroaching into their neighbourhood even though a project was under construction or near completion. For example, a proposed ingress of a commercial development in SS2 onto neighbourhood major access was met with strong objection and the residents demanded that outflow of traffic generated from the proposed project should be directed to the LDP Expressway instead of the neighbourhood even though it was rejected by the highway authority. After much negotiation, the project proponent agreed to build a ramp directly onto the LDP Expressway. This is an unresolved problem as the influx of traffic onto the highway will aggravate the congestion problem. The impact of traffic can only be minimised with the improvement on public transportation. Mass transfer of people and movement need to be there in place of the private vehicles. Until then, no solution is workable, either widening of road or getting more outlets for traffic while we are still developing pocket of land in the neighbourhood area.

This remind me on the importance of strategic and master planning rather than piece meal development. Petaling Jaya, as the oldest new township in Malaysia cannot spare from the development trend. The original objective of developing PJ as a bedroom town for KL is no more relevant with the rapid development of surrounding area such as Shah Alam, Subang Jaya, Puchong, Kota Damansara and Selayang. Changes is unavoidable. The question is are we well equipped and well grip with us what we want the direction of PJ to be? Are we talking about improving the living environment quality in which residential will still be the main land uses or are we talking about making PJ a metropolitan capturing outflow of businesses opportunities from KL? We have to decide. If the answer is former, then we should allocate sufficient resources for upgrading the infrastructure and facilities so that old houses in areas such as Old Town, Section 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, SS9A will go for renewal without having too many of commercial activities there. Incentives on premium for lease, quit rent, assessment rate and etc will be of help to expedite the process of regeneration.

The dilapidated situation of industrial area in Section 51, 51A, 19, 13 and SS8 and also because of the economic transformation in Petaling Jaya need regeneration process to be taken. It is no longer feasible of having manufacturing activities in PJ due to economic scale, traffic constraint, labour and supporting facilities. So, reshape of these areas are urgent. While value-added to the activities such as services, institution and financial are welcomed, their presence should have added value to the surrounding area in term of infrastructure improvement, complimentary to each other on support activities. For example, perhaps Old Town can be centre of residential area and retail activities for the expatriates in Section 51 and in return Section 51 can have public art gallery, theatre, leisure centre for the people in Old Town. The regeneration process should have taken bigger picture than focusing too much on development for individual land owner. In this case, are we talking about surrendering of private land for road widening, for parks, for facilities or merely keeping the facilities provision within the existing available reserves?

We are at the Catch 22 situation. While the role of MBPJ as fire fighter is still valid and important, attention on finding strategic long term planning and development direction for PJ is getting critical now.

Klang River Rehabilitation

As part of the Klang River Rehabilitation Initiative by Selangor State Government, MBPJ together with residents group at PJS area formed the River Rangers Group under the partnership spirit of Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya. An action plan was formulated with many actions and programmes to be implemented. One of the many proposal, I think the Drains Adoption Scheme must be the most excited and attracted.

Under the Drains Adoption Scheme, residents groups will become adopted parent to monitor the status of drains, to report to MBPJ on the status and to initiate community actions for maintaining the drains. A Community clean up was organised last Sunday with participation of 30 residents from PJS1. The monsoon drain along the Jalan PJS 1/15 was cleaned with the help of MBPJ and Alam Flora. During the course of action, we thought of paint up the retaining wall of the drain with civic message and drawing. This might attract attention, we thought.

Water quality test was also conducted to gauge the water status of Klang River at PJS 3. The survey conducted by residents with sample test kit took into consideration PH test, BOD and other parameters. Generally, it showed that room for improvement is there.

The group is participating in the River Carnival on 13 & 14 th March 2010 hosted by the Selangor State Government. We shared with other community groups on river monitoring and rehabilitation apart from taking part in the games related to River.

We welcome others to become River Rangers and join us for rehabilitating the Klang River.

289,669

A Malaysia Record was born last Saturday. The largest collection of beverage packets in a month was achieved with the collection of 289,669 unit of packets. This is a joint attempt by MBPJ, TetraPak and Lions Clubs International District 308B1, Malaysia to raise awareness on 3R Initiative. The high impact programme was commenced on 1st February 2010 and end on 6th March 2010 with the fun-filled and entertaining Recycling Carnival at One-Utama Shopping Centre.

While achieving the Record is an achievement itself for Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya, the most important message to bring out from the campaign is participatory implementation of 3R. For the first time, Lions Clubs throughout Malaysia were collecting the packets and amazingly Lions Club of Kuala Trengganu comes out top amongst the participating organisation with a total collection of 26,000 packets. Many have admitted this was the first time that packets were collected as they are not aware about the recycling of packets.

The Campaign has, in fact open many's mind about 3R and recycling.

Gong Xi Fa Cai 2010

Xi

Come this Saturday, the MBPJ's Chinese New Year Celebration with LA 21 PJ will be on again. Starting from 8pm until 10.30pm, various activities include possession of floral car, vintage cars, dragon dance, school band, marching squad and lions dance as well as stage performance by popular artist, cultural shows, Chinese orchestra, face change and other interesting and fun-filled programmes. Light refreshment will also be served. For the lucky one, you might won prizes ranging from free parking in PJ, plasma TV, Coffee Table book of PJ to other attractive prizes. Everyone and up to 5000 people will be having the chance.

Meet you there on 13th March 2010 at PJ Civic Centre Car park lot.

Children Feeling

I learned a lesson last week. To many, it means so petty but to some few it is so damaging.

Under the Child Friendly City Initiative, we supposed to interview some child candidates last Saturday. The session has to cancel due to lack of response. Many children have other engagement and preferred to be interviewed next date available. However, two girls agreed to come. My staff managed to call those involved and informed them about the cancellation except both the girls. Their phone were not contactable and as the last resort, voice mail was recorded informing the news. Some how rather the message was not through and the girls turned themselves up for interview. They felt disappointed. so do me and others for the breaking down of communication. Some have asked us to issue an official apologies.

The argument is we should treat the children with care and promote atmosphere of welcoming them to participate and contribute towards making PJ a Child Friendly City. If we do not accord them right equity, they will feel on inferior of working under the adult instead of working along the adult. In other word, to respect them as equal partners.

It makes sense. Many of the time, we tend to treat children, the segment of community that need protection and guidance for which many future actions and directions have been for them without their participation. We tend to presume they like this and that or they should do this or not to do that. Very little efforts are spent to consult the children, or ignore their view even early consultation was made. I believe this is the basis instinct of fatherhood or motherhood of adult in protecting the children. Perhaps also the generational and expectation gaps.

In facing the challenges of the days, many social ills involving children and youth cannot be resolved without involving the stakeholders themselves. We should, therefore listen passion, understand deeply, act accordingly and embrace the children thoroughly or else risk of losing the children trust on us. The incident, if not handle with care will bring damage to the yet established Child Council.

Thereby, I have no objection for saying SORRY if necessary and the aggravated parties feel more comfortable.

1st Record Making for LA 21 PJ

Comes this Saturday 6th March 2010, a record in Malaysia will be created by stakeholders of PJ and Lions members. Campaign on The Largest Collection of Beverage Packet in a month will reach the peak on this day. Various fun-filled activities such as interactive games, performance, exhibition and charity sale of packet drink would be held from 10.30am to 10.00pm at the Entrance of New Wing, One-Utama Shopping Centre, Petaling Jaya.

Would you like to be part of the great team in achieving such a feet, for 3R and the Earth? Please join us