SEBERANG PERAI, Oct 27 — The Seberang Perai City Council (MBSP) has implemented an action plan to stop illegal dumping of waste especially at certain remote areas.

MBSP Mayor Datuk Rozali Mohamud said there were five components under the action plan, the first of which was setting up of a community and security unit consisting of auxiliary police and traffic wardens.

"This unit was set up on September 1 and they’ve been instructed to conduct random checks on lorries transporting rubbish to make sure they have permits to transport rubbish,” he said in a press conference today.

He said all lorries transporting waste to the landfill must have permits from MBSP so lorries without permits cannot transport waste.

"We will also increase our surveillance at some hotspots like what we did last night,” he said.

MBSP enforcement officers were conducting surveillance around the area when they caught a lorry illegally dumping waste at a site next to the Butterworth-Kulim Expressway along Jalan Mengkuang.

"They were caught red-handed but when they noticed our enforcement officers recording their actions, they threatened our officers and even threatened the safety of their families,” he said.

He said MBSP has lodged a police report against the lorry driver for threatening its officers and the driver was arrested and later remanded for five days by the police.

"We will also be taking legal action against the driver under our refuse collection, removal and disposal bylaws and also Section 112 of the Local Government Act for obstruction of a civil servant from dispensing his duty,” he said.

He said MBSP enforcement officers have been conducting close surveillance around the area between October 23 and 26 after receiving complaints of illegal open burning at Mengkuang Heights nearby.

He said enforcement officers were often threatened when they caught perpetrators red-handed and hoped the police would take appropriate action against these culprits.

One of the action plans was to work with the soon-to-be set up special state committee to manage illegal dumping.

"The case where we caught the lorry red-handed will be the first case to be brought to the special state committee to decide on further actions to be taken against the lorry driver,” he said.

He said the special committee, as announced during the recent legislative assembly, will consist of various government agencies such as the Department of Environment (DoE) so these agencies can decide on further actions that can be taken against those found to have illegally dumped rubbish instead of bringing it to the landfills.

"I had a meeting with state exco Jagdeep Singh Deo this morning and he advised that we reduce manual surveillance and revert to technology for safety of our officers so we are now looking into using mobile CCTVs for surveillance,” he said.

The third step in its action plan was to restructure its waste management system and focus on waste diversion instead of letting all waste end up in the landfill.

"We are looking at a large scale commercialised waste diversion system and we will have a more modern waste transfer system which is still under discussions,” he said.

He said MBSP is creating a construction and demolition waste diversion centre and hope to come up with a better solution to manage construction and demolition waste by March 2021.

"We will also be making it a condition for new factories applying for permits to register their hauliers and present us with their estimated waste so that we can come up with a system using technology to match the waste coming from the factory and the waste going to the landfills,” he said.

He added that hauliers will also be encouraged to install GPS on their lorries so that they can be tracked especially if there were instances of illegal dumping.