Selangor' Rubbish problems

The never ending reports on the saga of uncollected rubbish and incompetent rubbish contractors, in the reports Petaling Jaya folk want rubbish collectors to respond faster and Irregular rubbish collection in Kinrara remind us that Malaysia lies almost at the bottom of the heap in keeping the country clean and healthy.

Whilst I have also been adamant that the rubbish contractors have been quite irresponsible in their efforts to do the job, I have also raised the observation that most, if not all the residents in the respecitve areas have not been cooperative. On my part, I try to separate the rubbish everyday, so that food waste is not bagged together with plastics and recyclables. I always put mu rubbish in proper disposal bins while awaiting collection, and I know the collectors will at least have a decent chance to save and salvage the reusable "rubbish" like aluminum cans and plastic bottles. I also send my bulk waste to organisations that recycle them for charity. I put my garden waste in black bags as suggested by the contractors, and leave them in neat piles for collection.

Reading the reports today, it is obvious that half the blame lie on the residents themselves. They nonchalantly

• put their garbage bags almost anywhere;
• pay no heed to "no Litter" signs and throw all rubbish including bulk waste anywhere they like; this is making it extra difficult for the rubbish contractors to complete their job on schedule
• throw rubbish outside the designated areas, and then complain that the contractors do not collect the bags; are the contractors expected to know of EVERY place rubbish is being thrown?
  
• dump bulk waste anywhere they feel it's convenient, and they also expect the contractors to know how to collect them;
  
• throw rubbish into drains clogging them; restaurant owners are the most guilty of this act; and then they complain that the rubbish contractors do not clear rubbish from the clogged drains. 

If residents are apathetic, and do not cooperate to keep the areas clean, even the best rubbish contractors will find it impossible to clean up the town. This problem is of course compounded by the sudden change of most contractors in Selangor, with most of them offering cutthroat prices for the job. Of course, most of the workers will be foreign, cheaply recruited, with little experience in rubbish collection.
Keeping the areas clean is a mutual responsibility between the residents, the local councils and the contractors, and at the moment, though the contractors have not been competent, the residents have not been cooperative too.
The local councils need to be firm with residents who throw rubbish in such a irresponsible manner; for example I have told MBPJ about mattresses and broken chairs and radios and TVs etc being thrown just outside some houses in Jalan 11/10; the enforcers could have just gone there and fined and warned the tenants or the owners. Instead, everyone is blaming the rubbish contractor. What sort of Rubbish management is that?
In Germany, for example, if a household has bulk waste to dispose of, the owner will call a certain number, and arrange it to be collected on a certain day, leave her rubbish in a neat pile at a convenient corner on the designated day, otherwise it will not be collected. At present, Malaysians adopt a "throw as you like" attitude on their rubbish disposal, and unless the councils can do something about that, the rubbish problem will persist.

It takes two to keep Selangor clean