3R's - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Dear Editor,

After reading Tiara Times article on Recycling Bins, I would like to comment that a Star MetroToday's article "Trim the Waste" did not even get the basics right. I quote En. Abdul Aziz Abdul Wahab, the CEO of Alam Flora, stating that one solution was to practice the 3R's – reduce, recycle, and reuse – programme."

The correct sequence should be:

1) To try and Reduce first, as that is the best and the cheapest.

2) Then try to Reuse – many things can be reused, sometimes in a different setting. For instance, I know of one stall owner in the PJ Old Town Market, who reuses old plastic bags to hand out the vegetables he sells. We should encourage more of this. I also know of a furniture manufacturer in Johor who ran short of raw material (pine wood) and went round collecting discarded packing boxes made of pinewood, converting these into furniture items, which were then exported! The discarded pine wood boxes would have otherwise been burnt in the landfill!

3) Then last of all comes Recycling, which is very much more expensive and cumbersome...and not applicable at all to plastic bags! A fair bit of wood can be recycled. And certainly, paper and tin cans.

So let’s work on doing the thing right – doing it the right way – before we can do the right thing.

All for Reducing, Reusing and Recycling – in that Order