Tips on recycling

Having the support of your community for your recycling effort is a great step forward because it allows you to deal on favourable terms with collectors. 

While a collector of recyclable materials might be reluctant to come to your house to collect 50kg of newspapers, he would certainly come to your neighbourhood if all of you managed to collect 500kg. 

You should also be aware that different materials have different values. You should not have a problem selling things like old newspapers or aluminium cans. 

However, it can be quite difficult to sell certain types of plastics, depending on the season, and it is almost impossible to sell glass other than bottles and jars, as there are no collectors for these types of glass locally. 

It might also interest you to know that the prices of recyclable items, rise and fall according to global demand. 

This means that the prices of certain items will fluctuate from time to time, sometimes on weekly or even daily. 

As much as possible, buyers like Alam Flora will try to buffer the effects of price reductions at their buyback centres and for their other programmes. However, even they have to bow to market forces and sometimes reduce prices. 

Now that you know some of the details that might affect your recycling efforts, here are some tips you might find useful.  

First, know what can be recycled. This will prevent incidents at buyback centres where customers bring non-recyclable materials and are told that they cannot be recycled.  

Contact your local residents’ association. Chances are that it is looking for projects that will raise funds as well as get its members involved. 

A community recycling day would also be an ideal avenue for neighbours to get to know one another, especially those who live more than a few doors away from one another. 

Set up a collection point in a field or nearby location and have a few volunteers man the collection point on the appointed day and time. 

Make arrangements with a collector to cart away the recyclables on that day. Nothing puts people off recycling faster than making the effort to get up early on a weekend and bringing their recyclables to the collection point, only to find that no one turns up to collect the recyclables. 

Such incidences can really impede efforts to promote recycling. 

In areas where Alam Flora operates, you can call its toll-free number, 1-800-880-880. In other areas, you can contact the Housing and Local Government Ministry’s recycling secretariat or log onto www.kitarsemula.com  for details on local recyclers. 

Alam Flora also operates buyback centres at the following locations: Carrefour in Subang Jaya and Wangsa Maju, Pasar Moden Cheras, Desa Pandan, Mid Valley Megamall and Bukit Raja Shopping Complex in Klang. You can drop your recyclables off there when you go shopping.