Reading Journal 2

READING JOURNAL 2

NO MORE TRASH?

PREPARED BY: ME [GROUP C] [2008242108]

LECTURER: MADAM ZURIANI BINTI YAACOB

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Title

: No More Trash?

Author : Norimitsu Onishi Source : The New York Times (May 12, 2005)

As an effort to promote recycling and to reduce the amount of waste, Japan has introduced a new garbage policy; increasing the number of garbage categories. The residents are handed booklet complete with detailed instructions on how to sort their trash appropriately. Japan aims to reduce the amount of garbage that ends in the incinerators since in Japan, 80 per cent of garbage is incinerated. Sorting out and recycling may cost more than dumping, but experts claimed that sorting out trash and recycling however are not necessarily expensive than incineration. Each house is then subsidised with a garbage unit disposal that recycles raw waste material into compost and residents would drop off every recyclable items at the recycle station. Also, old folks are the ones that have been doing a very good job in contributing towards reaching the country’s goal. They could sort out their trash properly and some have been looking for wrongly sorted garbage and would take them back to the owner. The young, however, are notorious for not sorting out especially those living in the cities.

In my opinion, the situation in Japan and the current situation in Malaysia are like chalk and cheese. The amount of garbage is mounting day by day and the awareness of recycling is still low among the citizens especially in urban areas. There are efforts to promote recycling but still they are not persuasive enough that people has been taking this matter lightly. Japanese have realized that their country is just a small island and if

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part of the country is to be made as dumping site then land would become even scarcer. However, Malaysia itself is not any bigger than Japan and there should not really be dissimilarity in people’s attitude towards recycling and sorting out. In Malaysia as well, it is the young that are normally more alert when it comes to recycling and sorting out. Garbage issue has become a serious problem in Malaysia and more emphasis should be given on encouraging people to recycle and sort out trash by any means. One way to promote is by implementing the new garbage policy the way that the Japanese have done and government should act strictly to tackle this matter by fining those who failed to sort out their trash properly. Promotion could also be done through mass media and education since the targets are not necessarily youths but adults as well. In addition, stores and shopping malls should provide fabric bags or paper bags for free to the customers instead of using plastic bag or charging the customers for the fabric or paper bags in the name of eco-friendly. Last but not least, the citizens themselves should play their role by reprimanding one another if they do not recycle and sort their trash out.

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