Protect Coral Reefs in Malaysia

Tioman Island produces a lot of waste glass – mainly food condiments glass bottle and alcoholic drinks glass bottle. Glass is not biodegradable and has to be heated up to 1,500 degrees to be recycled. In addition, there is colour separation – bottles of different colours cannot be mixed. Together with limited end market usage for glass, low reselling price and production cost, many recyclers on mainland focus on materials that give them the most returns, like plastic and aluminium. As a result, waste glass from Tioman Island is not sent out to mainland for recycling. Other factors that glass is not sent out are that it is bulky, heavy and is hard to handle in terms of transportation and logistics, which means transporting it costs a lot.

While plastic, aluminium and electronic wastes are sent out to mainland for recycling, waste glass on Tioman Island is cleaned and then crushed with glass crushing machine on the island – a project spearheaded by Reef Check Malaysia in collaboration with Rumah Hijau. The crushed glass is then used with cement for construction projects on the island, reducing the consumption of natural resources such as sand. The crushed glass is also used with cement to build coral block – with glass bottles cemented in the coral block as attachment site for broken live corals, for coral rehabilitation programme on the island. The repurposing of waste glass into construction and reef rehabilitation materials not only minimise greenhouse emissions and reduce wastes going to incinerator but also provide substrate for broken live corals to attach on and continue to thrive.