The Pilot Project was launched!

Since March, we prepared for the Pilot Project for collecting e-wastes from households for recycling. We discussed the concept in the Local Working Group, invited the local businesses, developed the monitoring system, designed the paper media for advertisement and prepared the opening events. Finally, we could start the Pilot Project on June 2. You can visit http://www.facebook.com/ewaste.Penang managed by the local businesses with the related organizations for the further information.

In the Pilot Project, two home electric appliance shops and two mobile phone shops are ready to collect e-wastes from households. Home electric appliance shops are offering to take back the e-wastes from households upon delivery of the purchased products, while it is a good timing for mobile phone shops to offer the customer to recycle their mobile phones in the shops upon purchase. The progress of the Pilot Project will be reported soon.

Two series of events were held for celebrating the launching.

On June 1, the opening workshop was held. The Pilot Project was celebrated by the opening remarks from Mr. Masayuki Hayashi, JICA Malaysia and Dr. Zulkifli Abdul Rahman, Deputy Director General (Operation), DOE Putrajaya. Also, Deputy Consul-General, Consulate-General of Japan in Penang attended for celebrating the Pilot Project commencement.

The local businesses who participated in the Pilot Project expressed their expectations, after Mr. Hideki Wada explained the concept of the Pilot Project.

On June 2, the opening outdoor event was held. The VIPs in Penang, including Consul-General, Consulate-General of Japan in Penang made the speeches. In the event site, nine companies and organizations including EPSON, Dell and the local businesses opened the booths appealing to the visitors about the importance of the environment. Also, the lucky draw was given to the visitor for further attention. Three official supporters including Toshiba provided their products for the lucky draw prizes.

Presentation in Pilot Project Worshop

The presentation in the Pilot Project Launching Workshop on June 1, 2012 can be downloaded here.

Two important meetings were launched in Kuala Lumpur and Penang.

After coming back to Malaysia from the study tour in Japan, we proceeded to the next step, the planning stage by setting up two meetings.

For designing the e-waste recycling policy, a meeting named “Official Consultative Meeting” was set up.  For designing the pilot project in Penang Island, a local working group was set up by the state government.

On March 26, the first official consultative meeting was held by inviting the EEE manufactures. DOE explained that collection of e-waste from households is the focal issue and any regulations with EPR policy might be necessary. DOE emphasized to listen from the industrial side first and the consultative meeting was set up for this purpose. The participants from the industrial side agreed to present any ideas and opinions in the next consultative meeting.

In the previous week to the consultative meeting, on March 23, the local working group in Penang Island was held chaired by the state government. Some EEE retailers, hypermarket stores and mobile phone service providers participated. The ideas on the pilot project were introduced and discussed. They agreed to consider the possibilities to participate in the pilot project and present in the next meeting.

The pilot project is being planned in detail based on the ideas of any necessary policies.

Policy design was discussed in the official consultative meeting in Kuala Lumpur on March 26.

The pilot project design was discussed in the local working group meeting in Penang Island on March 23.

The study tour in Japan successfully ended.

The study tour for the counterparts was held for 12 days between 18th Feb. and 29th.

They heard from the related Ministries and industries to know the laws/regulations in Japan for e-waste recycling and also visited some recycling factories.

Based on the knowledge on the laws/regulations in Japan, we discussed possible regulations suitable for the situations in Malaysia. Also, ideas for the pilot project starting in next June tentatively were discussed based on the ideas for the future policies.

The Japanese experts are coming back to Penang on 4th March to discuss with the counterparts further.

The team visited a partial recovery facility in Tokyo.

The team discussed future possible policies based on the lessons learnt in the Japan tour.

Idea sharing workshop was held.

A workshop to share ideas on what collection system for e-waste from households is applicable was held in Penang on 17 Jan. 2012.

Y. Bhg. Datin Paduka Che Asmah Ibrahim, Director of Hazardous Substances Division of DOE Putrajaya opened the workshop with a message that it is very important to listen from the industrial side first.

Mr. Hideki Wada, the team leader of JICA expert team made a presentation first on the amount of e-waste and the current e-waste flow. Also, he pointed out by showing the result of the questionnaire survey to households that 1) the number of collection centers should be increased, 2) it is convenient for households to have retailers take back old equipment when new products are delivered, and 3) economic incentive for e-waste collection should be added.

Mr. Xavier Sebastian, Municipal Council of Penang Island, explained the conventional e-waste collection businesses from households by showing the photographs.

Mr. Mohd Fitri Mohd Mokhtar, DOE Penang, reminded us the functions of the partial recovery facilities and the full recovery facilities under the current e-waste related policies.

---

Manufactures and full recovery companies were expected to make presentations based on many experiences related to e-waste collection.

Mr. Bu Fan, DELL, expressed very positive opinions on behalf of manufactures and proposed the following ideas as “shared responsibilities among stakeholders”.

• Involvement of conventional recyclers is very important.
• Multiple collection channels such as 1) take-in/trade-in by retailers, 2) voluntary collection by community groups and 3) municipal waste management services should be facilitated with contribution from manufactures.
• The characteristics of target products should be considered. The characteristics of home electric appliance and ICT (information and communication technology) products are different.

Mr. John Ashok, TES-AMM Malaysia, a full recovery company, proposed an e-waste collection system by taking the China model as an example.

After all presentations, the participants raised many questions to the speakers for deeper understanding. The workshop for sharing the ideas and opinions were closed successfully.

The participants left their ideas and opinions inspired by the speakers in “Idea Sheets”, which are being arranged by the expert team.

The project is proceeding to the next step.

Presentations in the workshop held on Jan 17, 2012

You can download the presentations here.

The second workshop is being held on January 17, 2011.

We are now compiling the data obtained in the series of the studies to an e-waste flow.


The result will be delivered in the coming workshop as one of the basic information for discussing the pilot project.


Not only such data, to make the discussion more effective, we asked to some manufactures of electrical & electronic equipment to make presentations which include their ideas on what kind of systems are appropriate to collect e-waste from household. We could expect them some good ideas from their worldwide perspective and experiences.


Also, we asked some full-recovery recyclers to make such presentations. We are looking forward to hearing their ideas from the persons who know the local conditions very well.