SHAH ALAM, Nov 30 — Selangor Maritime Gateway’s (SMG) master developer, Landasan Lumayan Sdn Bhd (LLSB), has partnered with the environmental non-profit organisation, The Ocean Cleanup, to establish a state-of-the-art river plastic waste sorting facility in Sungai Klang.
Funded by Coca-Cola Malaysia, this will be The Ocean Cleanup’s first purpose-built sorting facility in Malaysia, focusing on plastics collected by the river cleaning vessel Interceptor 002, a barrier and conveyor belt system extracting plastic from the river.
Slated to begin operating early next year, the facility will be managed by LLSB, with The Ocean Cleanup providing guidance on waste management strategies for three years.
In a statement today after the memorandum of understanding’s signing between the two entities, LLSB managing director Syaiful Azmen Nordin said the facility’s establishment is a significant move in the state subsidiary’s ongoing efforts to mitigate the issue of plastic waste reaching landfills.
“This will be our first concrete and long-term effort to establish a circular economy under SMG’s Integrated Water Resources Management solution for Sungai Klang,” he said.
The Ocean Cleanup’s chief executive officer Boyan Slat echoed Syaiful’s sentiments, emphasising the importance of preventing waste, particularly plastics, from re-entering the environment.
“Therefore, working with LLSB to set up this sorting facility is a natural extension of our ongoing relationship in cleaning Sungai Klang to bridge the gap between trash collection and repurposing eventually,” he said.
Coca-Cola Asean & South Pacific’s sustainability and partnerships director Kirsten van Zandwijk is enthusiastic about expanding the company’s involvement with The Ocean Cleanup to address Sungai Klang’s waste issue.
“We have worked collaboratively with The Ocean Cleanup for over two years towards our shared goal of helping eliminate waste from rivers.
“As part of our partnership, we are furthering our support in Malaysia to help develop better waste management solutions for the material collected via Interceptor 002,” she said.
This initiative is a key part of a larger effort to clean Sungai Klang, which has seen 88,411 metric tonnes of waste removed since 2016.
The project’s forthcoming phase will concentrate on reducing landfill waste and enhancing waste recycling, thus contributing to a more sustainable environmental future.
