Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said following reports that Malaysia was slowly becoming a recycling hub for foreign trash in the wake of China’s ban on the import of plastic waste, four ministries had set down to discuss the direction to take on the issue of plastics.
The ministries are Zuraida’s ministry; energy, science, technology, environment and climate change; international trade and industry; and the water, land and natural resources minstry.
“We found that the business potential for plastic imports is RM30 billion in Malaysia.
“So, we cannot take this issue lightly, as it is a lot of income for this country. Therefore we need to tighten rules and procedures,” she said in reply to a supplementary question by Zakaria Edris (BN-Libaran).
Zakaria had asked about the extent of the impact of plastic waste imports on the plastic manufacturing industry, as well as whether the government’s aim in reducing plastic waste could be achieved if plastic imports were to continue in future.
Zuraida (PH-Ampang) said the plastic that was allowed to be imported was of good quality. She pointed out that the terminology used for plastic waste gave the impression that waste was rubbish, and, therefore, useless, but this was not so.
“The plastic that come are the homogenous and palette types. We are controlling this (plastic waste import) very thoroughly, to ensure the plastic waste that comes is of good quality, and processed to be used by consumers,” she said.
Zuraida said for the long term, they did not want to miss out the chance of making such an income, and hence the ministries had agreed to a gradual phasing out, where imports would be reduced.
“I hope we can do this, because we need to look at the income prospects. Similarly, we need to reduce the use of plastics and control the factories that are supposed to process plastics which generate income for the country,” she said.
To the initial question by Charles Santiago (PH-Klang) on whether the ministry intended to change the National Solid Waste Management Policy to prohibit all plastic waste imported from abroad into Malaysia, especially from China, Europe and Australia, Zuraida said there were no plans to do so.
However, she said they would relook the policy, stating that they had already identified the issue concerning the import of plastic waste.
Following the revelation on Malaysia slowly becoming a recycling hub for foreign trash materials, Zuraida said, they had tightened the conditions and increased enforcement.
“We have set up a committee to check 114 plastic factories that have approval to carry plastic waste imports in light of the issue on abuse of approved permits (AP) for plastic waste as well as the dumping of plastic waste at processing factories operating illegally.
“We find that only eight have fulfilled the ministry’s conditions,” she said.
Zuraida said the application process for APs to import plastic waste was done online, and many conditions must be fulfilled before the permit was given.
“We have added more conditions to ensure these companies don’t carry out illegal import of plastic waste,” she said.
Santiago then said there were 100 illegal plastic processing factories still operating in Klang, even after the local council had revoked their licences. This, he said, not only pointed towards weak enforcement but that local authorities were not being given full instructions, which was why they were still considering granting licences to new companies.
To this, Zuraida said a circular had already been issued to all local authorities, notably those in Selangor and Penang, where there are many plastic factories, to shut down illegal factories.
“Each application by the factories for licence to process these plastic materials needs to get a consent letter from the ministry. This is something we have put down in writing. However, since the incident was exposed, we have undertaken to freeze the licences to import plastic.
“At the same time, we have not approved the applications. All new applications must follow the new conditions, we have added 18 new conditions,” she said.