On 22 April each year, Earth Day is celebrated throughout the world to honor the rich, vast Earth that has sustained generations before us and continues to nurture life and inspire wonder.

This year, Malakoff joined the ranks of various organization worldwide by supporting a programme to collect household electric and electronic wastes or e-waste, organized by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE), Department of Environment (DOE) headquarters and Johor DOE in conjunction with the annual Earth Day celebration.

The programme was held at Dataran Ledang, Tangkak, Johor and was officiated by its Minister, YB Dato Sri Dr. Wan Junaidi bin Tuanku Jaafar.

The main objective of the programme was to increase the public awareness on how to manage and dispose e-wastes safely. Amongst the e-wastes collected were used washing machines, televisions, computers, mobile phones, refrigerators and various electrical and electronic devices. Malakoff, through its Tanjung Bin facility, contributed e-wastes that added up to a total of 36,144 kilogrammes of e-waste collected for this campaign. This resulted in the programme to be acknowledged and certified by the Malaysian Book of Records as having the highest amount of e-waste collected in Malaysia.

Speaking at the event, YB Dato Sri Dr Wan Junaidi said the e-waste collection programme was initiated to create public awareness on the systematic disposal of these items as improper handling of e-waste may endanger the environment and affect the public’s health and safety.

“The public at large has not been educated on how to dispose these items properly and this caused them to throw the items unethically by the roadside and in our rivers. The smaller items often find their way in garbage bins or sold to scrap yards.

“This programme is a prerequisite to a new regulation on e-waste management that we will introduce next year to make it compulsory for the public to dispose them at designated disposal centers nationwide,” he added.

Also present at the event were Deputy Minister, Datuk Ir. Hamim Samuri; Chairman of State Health, Environment and Education committee, Datuk Ayub Rahmat and Director General of DOE, Datuk Dr. Kamarulnajuib Che Ibrahim.

Photos courtesy of Enviro Museum, DOE Malaysia