THE government has given assurance that Malaysia will not become the world’s solid waste bin after China banned imports of solid waste from developed countries and refused to recycle more of the world’s trash.

Energy, Technology, Science, Climate Change and Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said the government had taken a drastic step by introducing new sets of standard operating procedure (SOP) and regulations for the application of solid waste import licence and revoking the 114 existing licences with immediate effect.

He said the licence were issued by the National Solid Waste Management Department under the Housing and Local Government Ministry.

“The licence holders need to re-apply the licence and meet the new SOP and criteria to ensure that there will be no violation of standards and regulations,”

He said this in reply to Noor Azmi Ghazali (Independent-Bagan Serai) who wanted to know what the government would do to the increased amount of solid waste coming from developed countries after China banned the import of foreign solid waste to the republic.

Yeo said China’s ban on imports of foreign solid waste came into force in January, forcing some developed countries to send their waste to other Asian countries.

He said according to the British National Audit Office’s report, Malaysia was the largest importer of plastic solid waste from United Kingdom, taking in 17 per cent of the total 250,000 tonnes of solid waste from the country just in the first quarter this year.

In comparison, China imported 40% of plastic solid waste from UK in the same quarter last year, Yeo said. – Bernama, July 31, 2018.