Two bills were tabled during the current sitting of Parliament, namely the Solid Waste and Public Cleaning Management System Bill and the Solid Waste and Public Cleaning Management Corporation Bill.

The government plans to set up a supervisory department called the National Solid Waste Management Department. Local authorities would be given monitoring and enforcement duties to assist the corporation in its operations.

The move of the federal government to take over the management of solid wastes and public cleaning from the local authorities has proved that local government bodies have failed in carrying out their duties. Are there no other solutions to improve the performance of the local governments? Would not restoring local government elections encourage the people to take part more actively in local governance?

If local governments continue to be indifferent, negligent and irresponsible towards the 3R (recycle, reuse, reduce) campaign or any other effort to manage solid waste, the RM1 billion start-up grant to the waste management corporation will be a waste of public funds.

Due to the lack of effective policy implementation and enforcement, the recycling campaign has invariably failed to produce the desired results. To make matters worse, even though the local governments fail to coordinate with the federal government, the former does not have to bear or face any responsibility.

Malaysia has launched campaigns like a national recycling campaign and the Love Our River campaign in 1993. However, after 14 years, there is still no sight of an efficient and effective waste recycling and separation policy. In 2006, the recycling rate in the country was only 4.5 percent. In March this year, the government admitted that the Love Our Rivers campaign had failed.

Waste recycling, reuse and reducing (3R) are very important strategies in managing solid waste. Countries which have achieved high recycling rates usually have strong implementation and enforcement ability that are being carried out by an efficient, transparent and accountable local government aided by their peoples' voluntary participation.

Local governments play a very important role in recycling. Local governments are expected to create a more facilitative environment where deeper stakeholder participation can take place. They should be given the power to grant waste management concessionaires by open tender and deal with different categories of waste according to the local conditions and diversity.

Instead of giving concession contracts to the few that are unable to deliver effective services, why don't we encourage more waste management companies with different initiatives and abilities which can foster the local economy?

Community participation is also necessary if we want a 3R campaign success. Only the people themselves know what they consume, what they discard. From there, a local government decides what kind of recycling facilities are needed in different areas such as housing, commercial or industrial areas. The community will then need to decide what they need to reuse or reduce. A recycling industry can be fostered by government incentives.

It is worrying that now, the housing and local government minister is given power to prescribe charges for solid waste management and to authorise service providers to collect the charges. Such a centralised administrative system is often fatigued and leads to over-concentration of power, money, people and information among central or national authorities. In many cases, local regions are being stripped of their resources and vitality.

De-centralisation is proposed as it better defines the roles and responsibilities amongst the various levels of governance, for reduction of national governmental control. There is a growing consensus that solutions for global environmental problems can only be found at the local level through local actions that are taken by local stakeholders.

This has put the focus on local governments to take the initiative to develop inventive policies, programmes and projects in order to protect the local environment in a concerted and coordinated manner - that would ultimately lead to encouraging global impacts.

In this respect, restoring local government elections is the first step to an effective solid waste management.