Zero Waste Malaysia’s first physical event since the pandemic started in Malaysia was greeted with enthusiasm as about 300 Zero Waste supporters safely gathered at Jaya One on April 23 to celebrate the launch of Malaysia’s first extensive online trash encyclopedia – Trashpedia. The event featured an art installation, panel discussion, zero waste mini-exhibition, t-shirt silk screen stamping, and a lively game session.
The highlight of the event was a tiger made of trash items from the Trashpedia webpage. The brainchild of local artists CO2, the “Last Pride of Tiger” complemented Trashpedia’s index of 101 items, while also drawing awareness to the pressing issue of climate change.
“We are very happy that Zero Waste Malaysia reached out to us for this partnership. We have been creating artwork with waste materials for three years now because we want to highlight how human overconsumption and not watching what you do with your waste can impact Mother Earth. To all of those who love our tiger and want to reduce your environmental footprint, Trashpedia is definitely a good place to start,” said Co2 duo Celine Tan and Oscar Lee.
What drew the crowd was the sound of laughter and excitement coming from our Trash Stack game session! A total of 30 teams worked to build the tallest tower out of the trash items provided, drawn from the Trashpedia webpage. The game was extremely well received by both young children and adults alike, and the tallest tower was 205 cm tall! The experience taught participants how to use Trashpedia whilst having an educational message, as all items on each table amounted to about 1.2kg – the weight of trash produced by an average person globally.
Bursa Malaysia, Trashpedia’s main sponsor, was also full of praise for the initiative and look forward to the extended version of this resource towards the end of this year. Emilia Tee, Director of Group Sustainability at Bursa Malaysia said, “The multilingual version coming up (in October) will allow all communities, regardless of language barriers, to participate fully in this movement.”
Those sentiments were echoed by policy-maker, Rajiv Rishyakaran, who was a part of the panel discussion, “I’m glad such a resource exists. Ever since we started running our waste separation campaigns in 2016, questions keep coming in on whether this or that can be recycled. Never have I come across such a comprehensive guide and I’m glad one exists now.”
From a ZWM public survey (almost 7,000 responses) conducted in April, 50% of respondents were confused about the recyclability of common household items, ZWM co-founder Khor Sue Yee believes the interactive Trashpedia webpage will encourage and empower Malaysians to care for the environment, practice a zero-waste lifestyle from the comfort of their own homes, and build a waste-free and sustainable future for Malaysia.
For those who wish to witness the unique installation, it will be at The School, Jaya One until the May 5. There is also an ongoing photo contest until the 5th of May featuring the tiger installation, with the chance to win 1 of 3 prizes. All are welcome to participate by posting a creative photo/video with the Tiger installation according to our contest guidelines.
