Recycling Day - 20th June

It might sound silly but this is something I've always wanted to do. Okay, considering my track record it's obvious that this is what I would do. Bernard, my fellow Casa Desa committee member is a like-minded person too, with his environmental engineering background to boot. Plus, it was actually his idea in the first place. Proceeds actually go towards eventually buying a ping pong table.

So if you're keen and willing, do come down and help recycle unwanted plastics, glass, aluminium and newspapers/magazines.

In fact, we're hoping to make Casa Desa a model residential project for people to look up to. Where waste is regularly recycled, or better still reduced and reused (that's the result of Bernard constantly remind me about the 3Rs; now I had to repeat it myself).

We discussed putting recycled bins around for people to do so at their own initiative, rather than to wait for specific days. I'm all for it. However, there was talk at the planning stages of our event that people would misuse the bins and throw solid waste in there too. Uuggh. Some councils go the the trouble of building fortifications to put the bins in - these look like immobile tanks or bunkers that could withstand a few drone attacks. I'm still wondering if some Malaysians are that bad. Or are we really just imagining all this stuff?

When we visited the management office last week, we were given their blessings too. The irony of it was that the lady at the office even told us we could print multiple flyers and distribute to cars and people that came in to visit! Maybe she missed the point. Probably, it was Saturday and she needed to be at home getting some rest. We just quietly pointed out that a posted sign at the guardhouse and at each block's noticeboard would be good enough.

We're also going to make sure that the soon-to-be-operating restaurant in CD, and other tenants, will have a grease trap installed in sinks and readily prepare recycle bins for customers in the premises.

I don't know. But I hope our recycling day effort pays off. That it becomes a waste effort rather than a wasted effort. Stay tuned for updates and the eventual pictures.

A New Hope

It may sound a little melodramatic, and sorry to steal that title from Star Wars, but I think a new glimmer of hope has indeed shone on Casa Desa.

Okay, it's not that we were living in a slum or that we were conned out of our life savings, but most of us felt a little helpless without a formal body to lodge queries or complaints to Faber Union.

All that changed around 4.30pm yesterday when 12 council members were duly elected in a jam-packed multipurpose hall (air-cond anyone?) with plenty of voices adding to the agenda and overall discussions.

Congrats to Lai Fong, our hard-working secretary who is now promoted to Chairman. Ramlan is now Vice Chairman and the affable Willie is Treasurer.

What's great is that the 60 or so owners who were there seem to be Taman Desans, many of whom have been living there quite a while. I struck up a conversation with Leonard who previously lived in Danau Impian where I did too. He's been living here his entire life and added to the oft-quoted remark that Taman Desa is still a 'strategic location within Kuala Lumpur.'

Another big step is to have our first meeting today at 5pm and tackle the issue of illegal air-cond piping and the rectification that must be done before the condo's warranty period ends in November.

We started the day uncertain. We ended it knowing there's lots to do. At least, we're now heading in the right direction.