Transforming 1000 Lives through Waste

All aboard, and off they go!

The boat was filled from top to bottom. What you see is 2,011.1 kg of trash collected from a small island village in a month. Can you imagine how much it'd be if it were from a city?

The Mantanani Waste Management & Recycling Programme provides a proper disposal system for those living in Kampong Mantanani, with the assistance from the local communities.

We hope this continuous effort in running the programme will get island communities closer to having a feasible and long-term solution on waste management for islands across Malaysia.

Thank you for your kind support to our programme!

A challenging season for everyone, no doubt.

Our Waste Management Programme had to be put to halt for a few weeks due to a few Covid-19 cases stirred on Mantanani Island. Now we have resumed operation with stricter SOPs. 

As our waste management team goes house to house daily to collect household waste, it can put them in high risk.

Living on a remote and small island has its vulnerability to all sorts of threats, and Covid-19 is no exception. We are closely monitoring the situation in the kampongs and supporting the community in any way we can to cope with the situation.

The recyclables such as plastic bottles and aluminium cans from Mantanani Island have finally been shipped off and transported to the recycling centre on mainland! You will see the before and after shot of the Mantanani Plastic Recycling Centre below.

This time it was 542kg worth of plastic bottles and 619kg worth of metal cans collected since February this year.

With the population of roughly around 1,000, we do not have the resources or even the volume to set up a recycling facility here, so sending the recyclables off to mainland, Kota Belud, is the only feasible solution so far. And we can only do so every few months as boat and land transportation can be costly. Again, one of the challenges in recycling on a remote island.

Your donation makes a difference to the Mantanani community. Thank you for transforming the lives of the local community of Mantanani Island during this challenging season. 

Ineffective or no proper waste management at all can invite all sorts of issues to our lives.

Every month, our daily waste collection team on Mantanani Island, Sabah collects around 6000-7000 PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene) bottles. We also do collect other plastic recycables such as single-used straws, cups, and containers.

PET bottles such as our normal drinking plastic bottles take at least 450 years to completely degrade. PET is made to be used for one time only as exposure to heat and continuous washing may cause toxic chemicals to leach out from the plastics.

With the local ground water supply largely contaminated from salt intrusion and wastewater pollutants, the local community rely on bottled water for drinking and cooking, thus there is an unusually large amount of PET bottles on the island with a population of slightly more than a 1000.

At the end of the day, the plastic bottles collected from the islands will be stored in the Mantanani Plastic Recycling Centre (MPRC) which is handled by our team together with the local community.

As the transportation and labour cost to ship off the plastic bottles to the recycling centre on mainland to be recycled is very costly, the bottles are usually stored temporarily at our MPRC for about one to two months before it is shipped.

In order to maintain storage space and cleanliness of our MPRC, we have a baler machine to press together the plastic bottles, making it flat and easy to tie them together and store the bottles properly.

Thanks to your generous support and the incredible effort from all of our daily waste collection team, the Cintai Mantanani team, and the local community, we are able to continue to work towards making a positive impact on our environment and the community of Mantanani Island, Sabah, Malaysia.

We've officially passed the half year mark! We hope 2021 is going well for you so far.

As of June 2021, a total of 174 households with a population of 905 were involved in our daily waste collection in both villages on Mantanani Island - Kampung Siring Bukit and Kampung Padang.

Between January and June this year alone, 35,561.9kg of waste has been collected, preventing it from entering the ocean, or being burned or buried. The waste includes food, plastics, plastic bottles, glass, tin, and miscellaneous items.

With a workforce of only 10 and 905 participants from the community, this is a major milestone

“Before the programme, we had to throw all of our waste to the beach area. The environment was very unsightly and everyone had to clean the waste around their house every day.” said Noriazziah, a teacher from the local community. “I hope that the programme can continue as it brings positive changes to the island.”

With your support in this programme, the beautiful coasts and the land of Mantanani Island is being looked after and not piled up in trash. Thank you for making an impact not just for the health of the island communities, but also our marine life and ecosystems.