A year's rubbish in 40 Petronas Twin Towers

Every one knows that 'story' "Around the world in 40 days." Well this story now has a new twist.

In the Sun newspaper Ravindran said, "In nine days, there would be enough to fill the Petronas Twin Towers!"

Enviroman says, "That will work out to be a year's rubbish in 40 Petronas Twin Towers."

The average person generates about 800g of waste a day; a city-dweller throws out between 1.5kg and 1.8kg. The nation as a whole throws out 16,000 tonnes of rubbish a day. 16,000 tonnes of rubbish a day, multiplied by 365 and one come up with a figure of 5,840,000 tonnes or almost 6 billion. 6 don't seem like a very large figure, so let us change that to kilogramme which bring the Malaysian rubbish population to 5,840,000,000 kg. Lets try to convert that to ringgits and sens (the local equivalent of dollars and cents).

Some Malaysian statistics: The composition of Malaysian Solid waste:

WASTE PERCENTAGE KILOGRAM
Organic 47.00% 2,744,800,000
Paper 15.00% 876,000,000
Plastic 14.00% 817,600,000
Wood-based 4.00% 233,600,000
Metal 4.00% 233,600,000
glass and ceramic 3.00% 175,200,000
Textile 3.00% 175,200,000
Others 10.00% 584,000,000


organic: 47%
paper: 15%
plastic: 14%
wood-based: 4%
metal: 4%
glass and ceramic: 3%
textile: 3%
others: 10%

Let's try to figure out in ringgits (dollars) term how much Malaysian are dumping into their dustbin. Will be back later when I have the figures. In the meantime, if any readers have the figures, putting them into the comments will be highly appreciated.







"In nine days, there would be enough to fill the Twin Towers!" Ravindran says.