DAILY EXPRESS. 26TH JULY: City Hall intends to call on the residents’ committee for some Manggatal apartments to have the communal bins on the property replaced, as many of these receptacles are damaged and cannot properly contain the volume of rubbish thrown away by the occupants.
A spokesman for the agency’s Solid Waste Management Department (SWMD) said the poor state of the bins complicated efforts to remove the garbage from the grounds.
“There are two bin-centres inside the compound for the apartments,” he said.
“One has five bins inside while the other has two.”
Each of these receptacles had a 1,100-litre capacity, according to him.
“The plastic body for many of the bins is cracked. Some have one or more wheels missing.
“The inability to wheel the bins out of the centres often gets in the way of the collectors doing a good job.
He said the team had to manually load the bagged waste onto the compactor.”
“To make matters worse, some unit-owners, then, turn round and claim that the collection is not being carried out as it should.”
The spokesman said City Hall had tried contacting the management company (MC) on multiple occasions about the need to get new bins.
So far, however, SWMD staff had yet to succeed in speaking to any of the company’s staff as each of these calls had gone unanswered.
“We understand that many unit owners had not been paying the monthly management fee which may have led to the firm becoming defunct.
“A residents’ committee could have been set up. We have been trying to establish whether this is the case.”
In the event that no such body had been established, the spokesman said, the agency would consider switching out the more problematic receptacles with new ones.
“If we do this, then the cost of the bins will be folded into the annual assessment which our rate-payers here have to settle.”
He was responding to feedback from a unit-owner about the mess around the bin-centre near his block.
Eugene of Manggatal was unhappy about the rubbish, including pieces of unwanted furniture, strewn about in the common area outside the bin-centre and on the floor of this installation.
“The piles of waste are unsightly and will give those visiting the area for the first time a negative feeling about the type of people who live here,” he said.
“There have been instances where the bins were not stored inside the bin-centre, after the rubbish was cleared, but left on the path leading to the building.”
The spokesman admitted that it was difficult to resolve the garbage woes at the property.
“Many of the tenants are not very civic-minded,” he said.
“They choose to take the easy way out and simply dump their bagged waste outside the bin-centre.
“They do not want to enter the building, let alone approach the communal bins into which their rubbish is supposed to be deposited.”
He said SWMD staff noted that some inconsiderate individuals had even thrown their bagged waste onto the roof of the bin-centre, when they went to check on Eugene’s grievance.
“They confirmed the presence of a sofa and small cupboard which had had been discarded beside the building.
“We had these items removed a few days later as a one-off help on compassionate grounds.”
He said a check of City Hall’s records revealed that there had been no breakdown in the collection service for the apartments.
The bins inside the two centres were emptied three times a week by the agency’s contractor EC Green Cycle Sdn Bhd, according to him.
“Since June 21, the company has been removing the rubbish from 60 per cent of the residential and commercial properties in the Northern region which are under our jurisdiction.”
He said City Hall’s rating-area covered a total of 361 properties from Inanam and Manggatal to Telipok and Sepanggar in this part of the State Capital.
About 253 of this number were categorised as commercial, while the remainder were housing areas, according to him.
“EC Green Cycle just completed the first of a three-month probationary period and has been meeting our expectations.
“The company has been keeping to the agreed schedule, while maintaining the cleanliness of its compactors.”
The spokesman said the collection at commercial properties was performed once daily and thrice weekly at residential properties.
He said the firm presently had seven compactors.
“The management expects to add five more compactors and two tipper-trucks to its fleet by the end of August.
“The company is on target to assume responsibility for the collection at all the 361 areas under our care come October 1.”