SEA Circular: Plastic Disclosure Project Training

Penang Green Council has organised a Plastic Disclosure Project (PDP) training on 24th – 25th June which was specifically designed for both local councils in Penang, Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang - MBPP and Majlis Bandaraya Seberang Perai to empower and enable the implementation of projects & programs for reducing plastic pollution. This training also acts as a platform to develop a standard waste & plastic data collection system for both local councils in order to identify the problems of the waste issue in Penang and provide the right solutions.

The objectives of the training are:

i. Measure and Assess: Understand the baseline of the current use, recovery, recycling, and use of recycled content, to ensure that the municipality/city council is better equipped to make important and significant gains on plastic pollution reduction, resource recovery and reuse of materials.

ii. Engage Stakeholders: Use the results to gain knowledge and capacity on the best way to engage the employees, partners, procurement teams, solid waste, and public cleansing departments, to name a few.

iii. Go Circular: It is difficult to enter the circular economy and efficiently re-use and recover materials if a baseline analysis is not completed beforehand; provide knowledge to the management on resources that already available and accessible for “circulation.”

A total of 25 participants from both local councils, Penang Green Council, Solid Waste Management Unit (UPSP) & Penang Economic Planning Unit (BPEN) attended the session which was moderated by Ms. Jacqueline Chang, the National Consultant of SEA Circular project at Ministry of Environment & Water. The training started with a welcoming remark by the General Manager of Penang Green Council, Ms. Josephine Tan followed by the main agenda led by Mr. Douglas Woodring, Founder & Managing Director of Ocean Recovery Alliance. This 2-days session is held through the Zoom webinar platform from 9.00 am-1.00 pm. This PDP Training is a continuation of the first Stakeholder Consultation on Penang’s Green Initiative: Solving Plastic Pollution at Source that was held in February.

“It is crucial for us to take the necessary actions now before it is too late. Our landfills are unable to cope when plastics are over-consumed as time goes by. We come to this world with beautiful nature and abundance of resources, why should we leave a world full with trash and plastics to our children?”- Ms Josephine Tan

On the first day of training, the discussion is mainly about the introduction of PDP training to participants and why it is a powerful management tool for the local councils to solve plastic pollution in the state. The next day resumed with topics of different case studies and challenges related to issues that local councils might face. Before the session ended, participants and experts managed to come up with a few outputs and post-training strategies.

The outputs are as follows:

• Get the idea on the existing data of the waste collection system practiced by both councils

• Identify problems of waste management and existing data collection system

• Identify challenges:

1. The transparency of the waste collection process

2. The enforcement that follows after implementation

3. Lack of communication & collaboration between important stakeholders in waste management.

Post-training strategies:

• Develop & standardize data collection system for both councils

• Identify reference points for plastic recycling in Malaysia

• Increase capacity building for both councils

• Organise a pilot project – Waste Segregation a Source: Solving Plastic Pollution in Penang which will be targeting residential areas (key stakeholders) and community leaders of selected areas.

Learn more about SEA Circular: https://www.sea-circular.org/