KOTA KINABALU: In rural communities where waste management services are not available, processing organic waste can be a good source of family income.

Rural Development Minister Datuk Ewon Ebin said using minimal equipment and the right knowledge, simple household wastes and even animal dung could be turned into fertiliser, and the by – products – natural
gas – could be harnessed in the process to provide free energy.

He said enterprising rural families who took up organic fertilizer processing would at least be able to reduce their cost of living as they could save on electricity and cooking gas bills.

Properly done, they would even provide an important service to their community by helping to process organic waste into useful products.

“During a working visit to Shenzen, China, I learned about a man who collects animal faeces from a nearby pig farm.

He puts them into a tank together with other organic wastes to turn them into fertilizer while at the same time harness the gas released from the tank for cooking and to power his house.

“Something like this can be done here. Any organic wastes, not necessarily animal faeces, can be used. And everyone can do it,” he said when closing an Environment Management Course Phase II/2012 in Menggatal, yesterday.

It was part of an annual programme organized by the Rural Development Ministry to promote environmental awareness and to teach rural communities useful green applications they could adopt in their daily lives.

Almost 60 residents from across the state took part in the course, where they learned about ‘Takakura’ compost fertilizer making technique.

“You can use the knowledge you learned from this course to improve your family income, while at the same time do your bit towards protecting the environment,” he said.

Citing unspecified research, Ewon said every person in Sabah produced an average of 0.5kg to 1.1 kilogram of waste daily, flooding the state’s already over-saturated landfills with up to a million tons of garbage every year.

He said these amount could be significantly reduced, given that most of the garbage that ended up at these landfills were organic wastes that could be processed into fertilizer.

He stressed that waste management and environment conservation in general were complicated in nature, as they involved many factors and affected everyone.

As such, he said it was the responsibility of not just the agencies concerned but also every member of the community to manage the environment.

“It is the moral obligation of every citizen to play their respective roles in protecting the environment, and this includes the management of our daily wastes,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ministry’s permanent secretary Datuk Ghulam Jelani said the environmental course introduced back in 2010 had received encouraging response from the rural community leaders.

He said the programme was timely and in tandem with the government’s effort to emphasis on conservation of the environment.

“Development programmes for rural areas are mostly focused only on physical or economic aspects. I think it is time that we incorporate environmental aspects into our efforts to develop rural communities.

“This is especially important as there is currently no proper waste disposal services in rural areas in Sabah.

The community has to manage their own garbage, and they should be trained how to this the best way possible,” he said.