TITLE: RECYCLING IS A HABIT

INTRODUCTION:

In Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Kuala Lumpur (UTMKL) hostel’s Kolej Kediaman SIswa Jaya (KSJ), there are many municipal solid waste (MSW) were produce and other recycle items were thrown in the dustbin. Since the UTMKL students prefer to take out food from the café, there are lots of plastic bags, plastic containers, paper wraps were thrown away. There are also some students that throw plastic bottle frequently as they use mineral water as their source of drinking water. This phenomenon are worst when weekend comes. This is due to outside food were brought in and delivery of fast food. The boxes of the delivery were threw away together with other garbage. It is really a waste to see those recyclable items become a disgusting rubbish. These four items together with toiletries bottles are the items commonly found in KSJ’s dustbins and four out of five wastes are made of plastic. Eventhough there are classified as plastic, they cannot be recycle together as they are made of different kind of plastic. It is really necessary for the students to separate them for easy decomposition and recycling when it comes to landfills and recycling centres.

OBJECTIVES:

i. To determine five items to recycle at UTM’s hostel, KSJ.ii. To find a solution to recycle those items.iii. To increase the awareness of UTMKL students about recycling.

DESCRIPTION:

Other people waste is another people wealth. My group came across a plan to prevent these valuable rubbish to end up at landfills as much as possible. UTMKL student hostel committee (JKM) will held a collection for the students to trade off their collected recycle items with food container every fortnight. For instance, they can recycle all their plastic bottle that they have used the past week to the JKM and they will be given a merit sticker as a proof of their participation. A certain amount of stickers will allow them to receive a fancy food container or water bottle or any items that have been fancily recycled. Trade in items are not limited plastic bottles only, but they can also trade in with papers, plastic bags, plastic containers and toiletries bottles. However, if we just do the trade-off process with dirt on the items there is no lesson learnt about the proper way to recycle. To overcome this, there will be a short class and a poster

about the proper way to recycle. We will put a condition for them to clean the items first before trade it to the committee.

The food container they received from the trade-off activity can be used to put their take away food from the café so that no more paper wraps and plastic bag will become rubbish as it will not be given to them. They also be given a sticker by the stall owner whenever they used container to purchase food. Stall owner are not allowed to provide the students with plastic utensils and plastic bags as part of their take away service. This is to make sure the residence of KSJ to less depend on plastic items and use only washable items that last long and not pollute the environment. 200 stickers will be provided to the stall owner to carry this project. An inspection will be held to make sure the stall owner did not misuse the sticker like give it randomly to the students if they asked for it or the owner want to show that they are doing their job.

It is also encouraged for the JKM to provide recycle bin at every floor of each block in KSJ. So it easier for the students to recycle on their own and foster awareness on their own. It did not have to be the colourful recycle bin just the black bin with label is enough for the students to recognise that they have to recycle their trash. This is easier for the cleaner to separate plastic bag containing recycle items. As the students will used the bin to throw their rubbish everyday, unintentionally they will get use to throw rubbish into recycle bin.

FUNDING:

RM150.00 will be charged from the stall owner to their contribution in this project. In return, they can charge the student RM0.30 per food container and RM0.10 per plastic bag that student used. This is being charged to reduce the usage of plastic in KSJ as students will surely did not want to pay extra for their transaction. Profit from this project will be used to make another campaign.

CONCLUSION:

The recycled items then will be sent to the nearest recycling centre. This will lessen the trash to the landfills and keep KSJ clean from too much of solid waste in the garbage. Students of UTMKL will get educated about recycling and can spread the knowledge to their family. Thus, the percentage of MSW will decrease in residence portion. Even this project is focusing at KSJ and we can lessen the amount of municipal solid waste, the outcome is still not change much on the percentage of solid waste thrown to the landfills. However, if this project will be successful, other place like the nearest foodcourt in Setapak Jaya can follow our steps and will increase the awareness to the people outside of UTM.