The Landfill Story That Related To Diapers and Pads

Landfill issues has again been brought up by the government. A number of active landfill are now waiting for its time to be closed and new landfills has to be looked for. Year by year, the price of land increases. To provide a space for household garbage is very expensive. But very few people have this knowledge.

What do we, human contributes to usage of landfill? No doubt, food and kitchen wastes has to be dumped in there. Other municipal solid wastes or the commercial name is urban solid wastes are recyclable wastes like glass, bottle, can; composite wastes like waste clothing, Tetra Paks, waste plastics; hazardous wastes like medication, light bulps, spray can, fertilizer, etc.

Let's focus on disposable diapers and pads. This is the story. Most babies in Malaysia are wearing disposable diapers and most woman are wearing disposable pads. These items are one of the top wastes found in landfills. I know this because I've been working on a Solid Waste Management project at Jinjang landfill back in year 2000. Our aim was to find out the types of wastes commonly thrown by people in housing area. Besides food wastes, disposable diapers and pads were at the top rank.

Not many people know that the workers in the landfill have to seperate wastes that can be recycled with others that can't. They also have to seperate hazardous wastes so that they won't contaminate the underground water.

We found out that many Malaysian were not aware of the right way of throwing disposable diapers dan pads. Babies' solid wastes (poo) are suppose to be thrown in the toilet bowl first. The blood on the disposable diapers are suppose to be washed first. You are aware of the odour from these 2 items right and what others? 1) Of course they contribute to bad odours, 2) They contribute to water pollution, 3) They contribute to the mounting up of landfill, 4) They are not biodegradable. The worst part is, landfill workers seperate them and can you imagine other people seeing the poo and your blood particularly? Isn't that filthy leaving your own private wastes been seen by somebody else? And the workers are men.. I was so embarased that time. We worked in group and there were a male student in my group. My male friend asked the worker (looking at the pads), "Is this usual?" The worker replied, "We see them everyday."

What can we do to solve this problem? Which one in the list that you'd prefer to resolve? Malaysian need to educate themselves the right way to dispose these items. We need to care of something. Be it the environmental effect that will occur, or individual self-hygienic means. We need to choose at least one of these to at least minimise their effects..

I choose to stop wearing all disposable items unless biodegradable. I hope this will help reduce the environmental effect, the landfill problem and of course I don't have to let other people see that private waste of mine.. If not all can do this, a few might help. Be the one that can help..